The Reclining Years Poem by Suzanne Hayasaki

A pair of deck chairs sat in the sun
In the flagging heat of a late August evening
Grieving the fact that the summer had come and gone
Again
Which meant that their days of lazing poolside
Were about to come to a yet again expected end.
Soon they would be carried away to the shed
Doomed to live in perpetual darkness until June.

To make matters graver they were the last of their set.
Their siblings having disappeared one by one
As the wind and the rain had taken their toll
On their woven wicker frames and the sun had bleached
Their stuffed cotton cushions into drab pastel mockeries
Of the coquettish floral patterns they had once presented to the pubic.

The old girls were feeling their years.
Creaking and cracking whenever someone sat in them.
Each one wondering which would finally find herself alone.
Neither wanting to be the first to meet her maker.
Neither one wanting to face the future without fellow furniture
To help pass the remaining days of her reclining years.

And so the two made a pact:
When the fat man came out to smoke his last cigarette
The one he sat in would jiggle just a little
In hopes a live cinder would fall onto a flammable surface
And smolder unnoticed by the old guy when he went into bed.

If the one caught flame, the other would lean in until she too ignited.
And united they would burn through the night
Eventually entering the paradise they both hoped existed.
For even if it didn’t, they had nothing left to live for.

When the woman of the house went out to water the flowers
She found nothing but a dark blotch in the lawn.
The weather conditions had conspired with the tiny fire
To whip up the flames and carry away the wicker sisters
In the shape of ashes and smoke.