Skip to main content Skip to secondary navigation
Journal Article

After Fifty Years Together (Boston Literary Magazine; Fall 2015)

Authors: Rob Jackson


After Fifty Years Together


there is no more resentment

when she cooks his eggs each morning

and doesn’t sprinkle them with enough cayenne.


When he says, "Stop moving my god-damned things,"

he says it with a smile,

even when he means it.


When she thinks of the apartment in the city

where she designed gold-lamŽ scarves of soaring birds

and which she took to escape the loneliness and silence

that met her when he was writing,

she is glad to be home.


When they have a drink together each night they listen,

enjoying the memories, the stories, the silence.


When they hold hands,

they are no longer thinking about other things

or other people,


When they close each day sitting on the porch

of the house he built stone on stone,

and they watch the sunset paint the fields he used to plant,

the colors and the stillness and the courtship songs

of the Chuck-will’s-widows are enough.



after_fifty_years_together_jackson_2015.pdf
Journal Name
Boston Literary Magazine
Publication Date
2015