FADED VELVET

by Susan P. Blevins

By the window keeping lonely watch stands

my Mother’s favorite armchair,

velvet faded from the sun that tentatively

reached into the room to warm her suffering body

years ago, when courageously she faced the

demons of cancer that ate away her body

How can I ever part with this armchair?

Memorial of a conversation we had as she

approached the fated end of life on this earth, in

this incarnation, at this time, with me,

her only child

She sat in this chair, and I leaned against her knees

while she lovingly stroked my hair. Looking up at

her, I listened while she poured out her grief and sorrow,

expressed the horror she felt at seeing the ravages of

cancer slowly but surely erupting all over her body,

consuming her flesh like the stinking sulfurous 

Phlegraean Fields of Pozzuoli in southern Italy

Then in a moment, demon transformed into angel

and she said to me, “Darling, all the suffering, all the pain of

surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, it’s all been worth it to

bring us together as close as we are in this moment, today.”

The blessing of our tears is held in that armchair, the tender

words of love we spoke echo around it like a cloud of angels

singing throughout eternity the ultimate song of love

* * * * *

"Faded Velvet" was first published in Mused BellaOnline Literary Review.