Abeo

She was my idol, my star, my future self.
Though I met her when I was only eight
And she 87,
I knew she was a great woman, an amazing woman.
Culture, wisdom, wealth, stature, life itself leaked from
every pore in her body
enveloping me in its sweet smell.
This woman was an artist, a Southern High Society woman,
brought up in a well-to-do Sicilian family out east.
She was the 'it' girl of her time.
Her trunks of fine clothes and jewelry,
her boxes of paintings that hung in galleries,
all of this was hers.
Eyes that shone so bright hid a dark past just out of sight.
She called me Mary once, though it's obviously not my name.
As the years went by, so did she.
The time stole her away from me.
Her hair, once gray, was now thin and white like her silk blouses.
Her eyes dyed slowly, faded to a dull blue-green.
Her eyes lost recognition, her body shut down.
Now all I have of a brilliant woman,
are some dusty paintings in an attic-
an ocean with seagulls flying in the blue sky,
a pink and peach sunset behind the trees,
a vase of dark flowers on a black canvas,
and of a cabin chimney smoking in the pine forest in the
dark of night with the white moon reflecting in the lake's surface.
Hat boxes filled with feathered and furred things,
silks and cashmere, the rest of her fine clothes boxed up and taped.
Jewelry from around the world, like her black onyx ring from Africa,
or her rosary from her childhood, and all her pearls and diamonds and gold.