Januzzi Beach
12/1/2009
Annette J. Wick


She was always a sun worshipper,
her soft brown Italian skin like fine leather,
deepening only a shade.
Eternally bathingly beautiful,
she was at once shy and knowing.
Her caramel skin, perfectly aged at any birthday,
would not wrinkle under the weight of growing old.

Her folding lounge chair still sits at the ready
inside the garage.
If she cannot be located in the kitchen,
the back patio is where she sits and pay homage
to the golden rays rippling through arthritic limbs.
She finds peace amongst the truckers
who drive on the interstate hundreds of yards from her door.
They honk their horns at the distant sight of her -
causing such raucous
it is like wild geese flocking overhead.

When the North wind is too harsh,
she totes the chair around front,
sets it in the alcove of the mudroom doorway.
She is surrounded by the warmth of the brick
and her husband’s trademark geraniums,
their arrival so frequent
the flowers are as perennial as her appearance in the sun

A memory, Christmas afternoon: On another back patio,
she is reveling in sunlight once again.
Her white nylon scarf shields her from wind.
In her fire engine red fleece she is dressed
in camouflage to blend with the season.
She sits beneath bows hung from the outdoor mantle,
their angled ends flapping like wings,
and smiles for the camera.
Hail to her, filled with sun and grace.