He Sits By The Fire

He sits by the fire
With a blanket across his lap,
A cup of steaming coffee in his hands.
On his feet are his favorite worn leather shoes,
Given to him for Christmas by her,
The last one that she was with him.

The tired brown dog sits beside him,
As he stares blankly into the fire.
His eyes rise to the mantle, to the picture of her.
The well-worn book is set down in his lap.
The dog moves over and rests its head on his shoes
While he flips his wedding ring in his hands.

His wife walks in and takes his hands,
Then pulls her favorite chair over next to him.
She wriggles her toes about, free from their shoes.
He gets up from his chair to tend to the fire,
And as soon as he sits the dog jumps up in his lap.

He turns to his wife and says to her,
While pointing to the picture with his hands,
‘Remember when she would sit in my lap?’
His wife turns herself and faces him
To say and take a break from the fire,
‘Remember the day she ruined her new shoes?’

He says in reply ‘you got so angry about those shoes.
You were the one who bought them for her.’
Then he tosses a scrap of newspaper into the fire
And wipes the ink off of his hands.
A shadow falls through the window and onto him,
And the dog jumps to the hearth from his lap.

He folds his wrinkled intelligent hands into his lap
Then reaches down to tie his shoes.
He takes his wife’s hands and she looks at him,
And he looks at her,
Until they take each other’s hands,
And stare together into the fire.

The dog gets up to lap at the food by her
Feet without shoes that fell from her hands.
Laughing, she tells him to go fix the fire.