Her 90th December by Shoshauna Shy

Sun hesitant this short day
During her husband’s funeral.
Crowding into the church

Muscles his youngest brother
Who died on a 16th birthday;
The twin sons another long-gone brother

Did not have; the daughter of a third brother
Who perished in a fire at the age of six.
There are the brothers and sisters

That she herself was not given
In that silent channel she paddled
Called childhood. Squeezing into place

Beside her two daughters
Are the handsome virile men
That they befriended time and again

Yet never married,
Along with the in-laws
Not acquired, the grandbabies

Never born.
So full the sanctuary,
Even while empty.



Author of 5 collections of poetry, Shoshauna Shy's poems and flash fiction have appeared in a variety of anthologies, journals and magazines, and even on the hind quarters of Madison Metro buses. She usually gets ideas for new poems and stories while stuck doing something else.