Ring the doorbell and you will
find her making soup, in spite
of winters that are
snowless and bare as a
Kansas back yard.

She’ll ask you in
and together you will count
potato peels for soup,
or pearls
you should have given her
when it mattered.

Midwestern walls are white,
framed like paintings
your aunt left you in a will.
Her name was never,
nor her heart ever,
lost, happy, cold, hot,
unmarried at the time.

Her demise mentioned
in the local paper
on Saturday, predictable as
carrots boiled and sliced