The Lady Bears The Blues Poem by Abraham de la Torre

She must have baked a thousand cakes and one
her little shop with customers aswarm
laden with goodies icinged with her warmth
infusing buoyed-up buyers and their buy.

She kept at it, intent to render days
with Mark and their domestic enterprise
complete. Conjoined by sheer conjugal bliss
whence sprung her fortitude alongside his.

He stood, nay, clung to her up to the time
her industry flagged down, the baking paused.
They didn't have a choice, the doctor ruled
she stop. And save her energy for worse.

Immobilized and ill, she would not rid
herself of simple joys and odd desires
no matter where her illness escalates
or whether pain revisits wantonly.

She could have fooled your unbelieving self
upon her sight, unbroken and unbowed,
despite a severed limb. Her face, unmasked,
greets friends and sympathies without chagrin

at all. One wonders how she does alone.
For Mark is infinitely always near
unerring, like a sentinel for life
she picked from an elite assembly line.

She may not walk as briskly as she used to
roll. But purposefully she rocks well on.
Her head is taller than her rolling chair.
Her heart remains as big as all outdoors.