(Victoria, BC)

As I look out on a familiar street
at the grocery as Sunday shoppers
pick up food for the week ahead,
I sit at a table for two as one.

I do not mind.

He has been a good sport,
sipped more than his share
of tea this week and nibbled
tiny sandwiches that to him
do not constitute a proper lunch.

He will be happier with his
pulled pork sandwich from
the Irish pub.

Besides, this gives me a chance
to have tea with you.

The young server brings my rose tea
in an Alice blue pot, a pretty
strawberry cup and saucer waiting.
She asks if I would like milk or cream,
and I say cream, because it seems
a bit more decadent, and, besides,
I think you would choose cream, too.

The small sugar bowl on the table
contains a tiny spoon whose bowl reads
Jasper, Canada, and is topped by a silver
beaver looking most industrious.

We would smile at that, and I would
tell you about my grandmother‘s
souvenir spoon collection, as well as
my own that she started for me
when I was a girl.

Yes, I still have them, likely tarnished,
though wrapped tightly and put away
safely. Somewhere. More of the things
no one will want someday.

Well before you made your exit
three years ago almost to this day,
you had your husband box up items
you wanted me to have, many of them
writing prompts for your own groups
after I trained you to lead them.

I kept those, too, have set them
on the table in the loft, amused to see
what sparks words for writers,
some of whom who knew you.

I’m sure you would like that, too.

Although I had not planned to have tea
with you today, figuring I would sit
here solo, here you are, as present
as if you were still embodied.

That makes me so happy I can’t
begin to tell you.

But you know that, too, don’t you?

•••

(For Georgann Turner upon the third anniversary of her death, Aug. 17, 2021)