Dear Ma’am Edith—

a poem by Roger B. Rueda

You once wrote
that we live between—the space
where hibiscus forgets to bloom
and footsteps never quite
make it to the door.

I imagine you then,
sunlight feathering the porch,
your hands deep in soil,
talking to roses
that refuse to open.

Your poem feels like that:
the weight of water
poured into the wrong pot,
the ache of a gate
that hasn’t creaked in weeks.

I read it again this morning,
beside a cup of over-steeped tea,
the air thick with burnt sugar
and old lavender.

You wrote, we wait,
and suddenly I’m ten again,
watching my mother smooth
wrinkles from a dress
no one is coming to see.

The door never opens,
but she wipes the knob anyway.
Just in case.

I wanted to tell you—
you say the wait is unknown,
but I think we know it
like we know the hum
of moth wings
against a screen door.

We name it
by what it touches:
a basin left out overnight,
still warm with yesterday’s rain;
the kettle we fill
out of habit, not hunger;
the way silence
settles on a chair
meant for someone else.

Maybe we don’t fear
the end, Ma’am Edith.
We fear
the long table
with too many plates.
The heat of fish
blistering in the pan
with no fingers reaching
for first bite.

Still we coax
the gardenias—
we rinse leaves,
cut back stems,
spray for aphids
with a tenderness
bordering on delusion.

We live inside
this careful choreography—
setting the table,
lighting the stove,
washing the same cup
over and over,
because somewhere
between the wash
and the drying,
we remember
what love looked like
before it left.

Your poem, Ma’am—
it didn’t break me.
It planted me.

In the soil
of things unfinished,
where the wait
was not cruel,
but holy.

And sometimes,
when the wind
smells of river
and blistered bread,
I swear I see them again—
those who wandered—
carrying with them
a silence
that tastes
like grace.