The Second of December
Who calls a wife from the hospital
at 3 am to tell her she’s a widow?
My call comes five minutes later
as I prepare for an early shift at work.
My mother tells me she’s a widow.
The December morning sky
holds no stars as I drive to her house,
with no stars on any second December
mourning to come. I don’t need a phone call
in the middle of the night to tell me that.
Ken Gierke is retired and lives in Missouri. Twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize, his poetry has been published in such places as Rusty Truck, Trailer Park Quarterly, As It Ought to Be Magazine, MasticadoresUSA, Ekphrastic Review, Amethyst Review, and Silver Birch Press, as well as in several print anthologies. His poetry collections, Glass Awash in 2022, Heron Spirit in 2024, and Random Riffs in 2025, are published by Spartan Press. He also blogs at rivrvlogr.com.
