Poetry, The Key in the Door and other poems

Spring Break

This was a day both ordinary and special;

the breaking of one link and the starting of another;

the end of one always and the start of from-now-on.

So perhaps it was ordinary on the outside

and radical on the inside. The weather was

certainly calm and sunny – warm for late April.

Inside her head was a troubling tension;

she felt a shortness of breath. Despite the

stillness of her body she was gently sweating.

They had come a long way to this day

and yet it felt like the briefest of times.

Both had grown older with wishing and waiting.

Now a morning of routine tasks, the laying

of the table, cups off their hooks, kettle on

the boil and the cat still to be fed.

The usual parting at the door, then;

a peck on the cheek, last wave by the car,

and clicks of doors closing,

closing.