For Elizabeth (Sestina Variation)

I witnessed the tossing of the white egg
back and forth between you and the stranger,
and heard the beer-bellied laughter resound
from room to room in my father’s absence.
I prayed he wouldn’t see the one you missed,
encrusted now on the kitchen window.

But prayers open me wide like a window,
broad enough for faith to enter, and egg
me into believing that what I’d missed
all those years was something even stranger
than a mother’s love; it was the absence
of a mother’s guilt I thought should resound

from sin to sin.  Instead, what will resound
is a son’s small forgiveness, a window
growing wider in your solid absence,
until absolution, a clean white egg
held in my palm, is no more a stranger,
and I can then release the things I’ve missed.

My life is stranger now that you are missed.
Your absence leaves room for love to resound
between the windowpane and the white egg.

Copyright 2004 by Sam Piperato.