Husband dead, son grown and gone, her life
simplified—“her life” being a subject
almost independent of her and “simplified”
the verb through which her life acted
almost independently of her and what she wanted.
Her husband died suddenly and young
the week their son was born,
then there she was, bereaved and stunned,
trying to dig up money for a burial,
finding herself instead in a hole,
in deep grief, infant in arms,
inexorable in his needs as any infant is,
although her wishes for him were
all the stronger for her being alone—
her wishes being really only one wish:
that he have the chance to flourish.
Her vow to give him this she made
at the burial, but she made it
silently and only to herself.
Not until her son was grown and gone
did she see she had made it for herself
to give herself a reason to go on.
With this vow she made another—
never to give up sculpting—
which she thought then was for herself.
But she couldn’t give her son the chance to flourish
unless she gave herself the chance in spirit,
and that meant sculpting whether or not
there would ever be any money from it.
And there hasn’t been, except from teaching children
art classes in her bare-bones murphy-bed studio.
That’s where I come in, way late and far
at the periphery, picking up my daughter Emily
age ten now who has been Miss Joy’s student
since she was four. I rarely see Miss Joy.
Her classes were my wife Doreen’s discovery.
When Doreen told me the teacher was “Miss Joy,”
I asked if Miss Joy had won a pageant
like Miss Galaxy or Miss Pork Belly
sponsored by a maker of antidepressants.
“Joy is her name,” Doreen said, deadpan.
“Even the parents call her Miss Joy.”
Today I know why:
she looks like a fresh birthday candle
with her tuft of white hair and soft bright smock,
and her eyes seem fired by what they see,
a delight in seeing she’s taught Emily.
Miss Joy and Doreen have become friends.
Her story comes to me in pieces secondhand.
Have I made her seem saccharine?
I love her for loving Emily and Doreen.
I don’t know what else she’s done.
I don’t hear much about her son
and even less of what she suffers.
Twisted metal scraps she finds in dumpsters
she hammers into battered solitary figures.