Pamela Sinicrope’s most recent poem to appear here was “Losing My Pieces” (January 2017)

An Exchange
By Pamela Sinicrope 

What could I have said? Why did he wait?
If only I could exchange this black
dress for shiny pink satin       and stand

before a woman cloaked in white,
hands fastened to my brother.
They walk out the door on rose petals,

return home.                Then there’s a baby
curled into the curve of its mother,
familiar blue eyes looking up.

The three sit on a custom leather couch
in the living room, TV humming.
He’s solving a Sudoku. She’s knitting.

A ringing phone—no one answers.
I’m walking in a cold stone house
searching for a wooden box.

A rack of clothes—they need to be packed.
I’ll never make it to the airport in time.
I’ll never stop missing him.

He walks to the kitchen without a limp—
spoons slow-cooked lamb into ordinary
bowls, fills a bottle.

The routine dream repeats, except
sometimes the rose petals float
or they turn into rice or snowflakes.