A Widow Poem

Is a widow ever not a widow anymore?

Is a mother ever not a mother?

Even if, God forbid, all her children die?

In the sensation of the life within,

in the pain of labor’s push,

in the holding of a tiny creature that miraculously emerged from her own body,

something shifted

something changed

that can never be undone.

When a woman screams with devastation

at the sight of her husband’s dead body,

when she holds the cold, broken flesh,

when she stands by the casket or carries the urn,

when she releases him into the darkness of the earth,

the widow is shattered into so many pieces,

she cannot retain her original form.

She may be stronger, wiser, more compassionate.

But she is never the same.

Forever widow.

photo: Ed Siderewicz