Forty Years Ago

The ornaments remain where she left them,

Photographs tinted yellow by years in the sunlight.

Smiling faces: mother, father, son, daughter.

Her shoes are lined up neatly in the closet,

Beneath the dresses that hang on the rail,

And her perfume stands in the cupboard,

The bottle half-empty (or half-full).

If only she hadn't died forty years ago,

The image might seem homely;

If only the son and the daughter were still at home,

Perhaps her husband wouldn't be lonely.

The house is large for just one man,

But brimming with memories, falling into disrepair.

Tragically young, she was gone,

And now her husband regrets the years

That he worked (and played) away.

Maybe it's easier to pretend that she's still here,

That the chance to grow old together

Had not been snatched away.

The baron of his own haunted mansion,

He surrounds himself with the things that she loved,

Hoping to scrape back the time that was stolen,

Lamenting over the time that he wasted...

Eighty years old - he knows that he will be with her soon,

But he doesn't know what he'll say.

Does it matter that he left the ornaments in their place,

Even if he lacks the strength to dust each and every one?

The photographs feel like souvenirs from another life,

And he wonders if she is not the only one

Who died forty years ago.