On The Widows' Walk Poem by Sonny Rainshine

On the widows’ walk the intoxicating perfume
of early wisteria was blended by the blustery March wind
into her own sachet of jasmine and lavender.

The purple vines themselves, grape-like clusters,
crept up the crisscrossed trellis as if prowling
for the invading scents, to repel or to merge.

Her shawl, which covered her head like a mantilla,
whipped in the wind like an ultramarine banner,
as if a signal or a surrender.

Out there where her eyes transfixed,
were yellow buoys, their desolate bells
clanging like church bells, funereal.

Out there where majestic clipper ships
pierced the line of the horizon
lay a promise of the sea

to return to her what it borrowed
two years and three months ago:
the man who hunted whales

and who was the repository
of her heart.