Love Poem: The Compromise Years
Peggy Bertrand Avatar
Written by: Peggy Bertrand

The Compromise Years

Foreboding night of mist twined with shadows of glowing lamplights.
She was standing there under the lamplight post,
her weathered cylinder mechanical smile,
in photogenic reverse.

Seemed she had been waiting for sometime
like the years end of mature thyme.
Graceful movements her hands went to work
caressing an imaginary spot in her palm.

Her head lifted towards the voices ahead
thoughts grasping the spilled syllables of conversation.
Without a speck of rationalization her eyes lit
her countenance sparked.

Her disappointment registered once more
as the couple passed.
Her hands began to massage the aching spot
in the middle of palm.

Her heart swallowed whole the womb of
age and disengaged as she remembered the
long wait of a promise the years of compromise.

Another year approaching her weathered mechanical
smile faded to a line.
Her arms sleeved in the coolness of the night
under the shadowed glow from the lamplight.