Seen and
not heard,
we sat in
straight-backed,
wooden chairs
our feet barely
touching the
floor, our hands
hidden underneath
our dresses–
trapping the
words in
the warm
expectancy
of our thighs.

“Keep this
one for me,”
you would
say, passing
the word
along in
the moist
knot of
your fist;
and I would
take it, never
unraveling
its mystery,
burying it deep–
a stigmata of dreams
that we shared
in the long Saturday
afternoons spent
sitting in the
dark parlor
of a woman
who would
die of cancer
at the age
of thirty-five.