Condolences by Jacqueline Jules

My pen poised above the pink rose on a card,
I pause before writing standard sentiments,
the way I always do, the way people did for me.

Yes, there is a blessing in memories.

To remember the night
he danced in the kitchen
waving a wooden spoon
and stirring soup
three days before the stroke.

Instead of all the days after,
sitting by a hospital bed,
watching the same man
breathe through tubes.



Jacqueline Jules is the author of Manna in the Morning (Kelsay Books, 2021), Itzhak Perlman's Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press, and Smoke at the Pentagon: Poems to Remember (Bushel & Peck, 2023). Visit her at www.jacquelinejules.com