~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Robin Gabbert

Posthumous Epithalamion for Ethel & Sid

Daughter of a blind Irishwoman

wide saucer eyes bluer than her hair was black—

she was all shy smile and pearls in the faded Daguerreo,

but she clipped off the extra thumb of a newborn baby

as a nurse trained by old Doc.

Sid broke his arm delivering messages

by motorcycle in World War I, then was

a brakeman on the B&O.

He rode the rails for days

before returning for doses

of her generous laugh, chicken-and-dumplings,

and nights sitting together on the porch.

The wooden swing creaked

till the children were a-bed.

Then, following fireflies

in the stairway windows,

he’d lead her upstairs quietly. She,

still prone to giggle like a schoolgirl.

Seventh daughter of the same,

Ethel had visions, prescient dreams,

and sometimes knew my

undisclosed nightmares,

locations of lost keys, things still to occur.

Sid later turned gruff

as the TB ate his lungs—

afraid to share a sip of coffee with five-year-old me.

But he’d still smile and untie her apron,

when she was least expecting it.

Now, the porch swing

of the old house on Gallia Street

is gone. It’s someone else’s house now,

run to ruin, left to the ghosts.

But her blue eyes shine on

in grand and great grandkids.

Her laugh still infects

all who remember. And sometimes,

her whispers still speak. Still,

give me chills.

Robin Gabbert has poems published in multiple local, state, and international anthologies. Her book Diary of a Mad Poet came out in 2020 and a book of ekphrastic poetry—The Clandestine Life of Paintings, in Poems—in 2022. Her poems appear in two anthologies published by Blue Light Press in 2022 and 2023 (Burro in my Kitchen; Poured Out of the Big Dipper). She lives in California wine country with her husband, Con, and dog, Hamish, where she is a frequent speaker on Ekphrastic Poetry.