The Hope Chest Poem by Tanya Delanor

Don't despair, the same
thing happened to me the
other day, when my husband
helped me out of my seat and
I overheard a mutter of: Do
you think that's his mother or
his wife?
How rude, but then again, we
have all had our secret thoughts

when sometimes we have
uttered something out loud
we didn't mean to be
overheard. Never mind
we'll all be dead one day
so my grandmother used to
say, and she was right
because she is and so are
many of those others who
used to talk to me

about people in the decades
before I was born, when I
was a little star looking
down on the world

and one of my most precious
memories is of my parents
driving to the bungalow of
some people Dad met during
the War. I recall the smell of
Devon violets, the tidiness of
the old, waiting for something
to take them apart from
each other, and I

felt so utterly young at
this point, my little chest
breathing in those last rays
of hope before I grew old
enough to care what they
were all thinking about
me