Robbed Marie Studer

Robbed

Besides chattels of blanket, stool, thermos flask, an umbrella pokes out of his tartan bag for afternoons of words and gestures, mediated by double glazing. This third season, his wife is curled in a recliner chair. Occasionally, her index finger and thumb pull pearl buttons on her cardigan. Though, for a time last year, he recited some of her favourite Emily Dickinson poems, to eyes scrunching smiles –WHO robbed the woods, The Trusting woods? Then the decree to close doors, to the pain no vaccine can heal.

Marie Studer