alone just like that

With the Sunday puzzle neatly folded in her lap     watching her love watching TV     a woman in her middle years rested in the fantasy     of life’s everlasting peace and harmony. This scene     she said     was all she needed from heaven     all she asked of life. When out of the blue     while filling in the puzzle’s grids she was propelled into a tornadic vortex     instantly reshaping that moment’s holiness        a flexing of the
muscles of death. Her love had collapsed.  She swore she’d never again believe in the heavenly     never again ask for anything. Wondered if she had the intestinal fortitude     to swing through this limbo unmoored. Wondered if she’d live to see     her self anchoring into a new reality.  

ANDREA GORDON

Andrea Gordon lives in Lancaster, Pennsylvania with her partner of thirty-eight years and their four-year-old toy schnauzer, Howie. She writes for four to six hours daily with a silent online writing community, as well as participating in writing circles. She is honored for her first publication to be presented in The Westchester Review.