She loved chamomile and orange tea. Something about it reminded her of late autumn nights when the first brisk winds started to sing.

She’d only hold hands if I walked in her right side. She said she’d get dizzy if I stood on her left.

She’d hum Edith Piaf songs while she worked cross-stitch. Her size five feet kicking like tiny paddles over the edge of her worn sofa.

The permanent wag of her chocolate lab swept the shag rug at her feet.

I’d complain about how cold her apartment got in the morning and she’d press her cold hands against my back.

Some days she’d ask me to write a verse as I leafed through old notebooks.

I told her the only verses I could conjure leapt not from my mind to the page. She’d scowl like a fish-mad alley cat and tell me to try again.

Afterwards she’d hold my ink stained hands and tell me she could read my future. The ink sucked into the grooves and furrows— telling tales only her mind could decipher.

On her birthday she’d wear a blue velvet ribbon in her hair. She told me an old blessing lived in it. I asked what for and she smiled like sunshine through ice.

On moonless nights when she shifted in her sleep like shifting tides, I’d lay gentle kisses upon her brow and wonder how long the immortal muses wander.