FOR DENISE FLETCHER 1960-2025

 

Last Thursday a nightmare

Small brown wren flew into my hair

Dug in its claws

And I pried it out in fright

Awake, I whispered to the Cosmos

Please don’t let anyone be dead

Since the last time a bird attacked me

Was when awake, a

Huge red-headed woodpecker

Became tangled in my hair

And my beloved aunt was dead

Birds, my psychopomp

Yet aren’t they supposed to be gentle?

 

Denise had introduced me to the sister of

Her Life Partner Jim via Gmail

Fortunately, she contacted me yesterday

To say that Denise had passed away

I was shocked although I knew Denise

Missed Jim who died last year 

When Denise told me she had cancer I went into denial

And the next day by phone

Told her how I cried

She comforted me saying she had three years

Before she died

A kind lie I willingly grasped

 

So here I was on Friday

Clicking through Amazon

Trying to decide on a small

Easter bouquet for Denise

Not knowing she was gone

Why did I not know?

 

I thought about her the next two days

How wonderful it had been to live 20 minutes away

And how we would meet at Sims Park and feed the ducks

Or how we would read and critique each other’s poems

We originally met because we were both published

In a Florida poetry anthology

She saw how close we lived and

Contacted me on Facebook, naturally

Denise wrote great poems and painted

Jim was a graphic artist and photographer

 

A few years passed but then Jim became ill

No longer drove and Denise stayed home

Roomie and I had problems with our eyes

So we did not drive either

But Denise and I remained soul sisters

Texted, phoned, messaged almost daily

Proving that people can remain close

Even if we can no longer hug or

See the expressions on our faces

 

I don’t know what to think

She and Jim much too young

I always thought we would one day

Manage a taxi ride to the park

Laugh at the ibis and duck antics

Words tumbling out as

We sheltered under a tree

Yet, it was not to be

 

So I send you my love, Denise

Watching it float above the clouds

And into the Universe

Hoping we will talk again

Even if only in my dreams…

 

© 2025 Clarissa Simmens (ViataMaja)

IMAGE: CS & Denise at Sims Park / Denise in one of Jim’s graphics

 

Poem by Denise Fletcher / See her book Imagine Nation © February 2024

Imagine Nation: Fletcher, Denise: 9798398475845: Amazon.com: Books

 

(I like this one because we were once laughing about how I was in love with the anonymous poet of Beowulf and she was in love with Elvis whom she considered a reincarnation of the bards of old)

 

Ye Old Bards

By Denise Fletcher

 

Thank you ye old bards

For spilling your heart blood

Onto parchment and wrenching

Out your inner core for

All the world to see