Eleanor
by Suzanne S. Rancourt

I found your diet spoon wrapped in cobwebbed dolies
pressed like yellow Tansy and repellent Pennyroyal
between swollen pages thick as tongues -- your diary --
pressed between moments and paragraphs
pressed as a pill to the roof of your mouth
choked away in a peddler's truck - your trunk --
dusted with foreign baggage claims.
Tie dyed t-shirts concealed your German Crystal
coddled your cobalt, stained-glass wind chimes
and smothered your butterfly magnets.
It all rotted slowly in the bone dry dirt, under
the kitchen floor, a root cellar,
you left everything for someone else
to dispose of. "It wasn"t easy" you wrote,
"to make the decision" although
you never said why.
Eleanor,
I took your rocking chair.
The landlord said I stole it.
My babies were crying. I needed to rock them.
Eleanor,
I don't know why you killed yours.

© Copyright 2004 by Suzanne S. Rancourt
originally appeared in Billboard in the Clouds, Curbstone Press, 2004

Born and raised in West Central Maine, Rancourt is Abnaki, Bear Clan, and a veteran of the Marine Corpsand the Army. Now a residence counselor for TBI, an organization aiding developmentally delayed and challenged individuals, she is also a mentor for Wordcraft Writers Circle, a singer-songwriter who has performed nationally, and an independent education consultant.