Eye On Life Magazine

Make every day a beautiful day.

Eye on Life Magazine is a Lifestyle and Literary Magazine.  Enjoy articles on gardening, kitchen cooking, poetry, vintage decor, and more.

Miriam’s Eyes Changing

She didn’t like me much

and I didn’t particularly care for her.

Letting me know in increments

mostly with her stare

sometimes words

that the others were gifted,

chosen,

somehow above where I was.

Making me feel ordinary

questioning

insignificant in my own skin.

Wishing I could become a snake

that I might shed the scales of uncertainty

maybe then

I would feel worthy when she was near.

 

My family never did that to him,

they viewed him with value—

but she did that to me

and I loathed her for it.

 

Yet the capsule of time journeyed on

discarding doubt

as the ephemeral minutes departed:

leaving her exposed

and me stronger,

I was not sure I was at ease with

the newer rules

for the ground was now uneven.

 

That is when I realized I loved her,

when her glare traveled into vulnerability

and her dreams were left suspended in clouds:

she looked innocent

fresh

like someone who

could start over.

 

She told me how she mourned them

blood strangers in a distant land.

They hid in homes, then were sent to camps

and after that, their fate was tragic.

But one survived and visited,

becoming transfixed

in the crevices of her thoughts. 

Each time she reminisced

like it all happened Tuesday,

tears invariably plopped on her wounded chest.

Nothing

not even her husband’s death

could replicate such a response:

a faraway uncle,

throwing open the taxi door

while the mystified teen gazed from the second-story window

wrought with anticipation

 

I have my own narratives, but none like these.

These are stories which can alter,

modify

rearrange how a person perceives life,

or circumstances,

or daughter-in-laws.

Yet we detoured past that:

laughing in winter

sharing wine by the fire

savoring ice cream bars—

uttering, “I love you.”

 

And something tells me

as melancholy fills our eyes

when I prepare to leave,

I might even be a Gentile

she could cry for.

 

Cheryl Sommese