The pebbled path leads to an overgrown garden
where roses tumble over each other and daffodils
droop in the heat. Swans glide across the pond
which is as deep and silent as a held breath.

A pregnant woman sits, as if frozen, on the faded
wooden bench beneath the weeping willow tree.
Her mind is anything but still. She is remembering
the day her husband proposed to her on this bench
and the plans they had for their future. Those plans
did not come to fruition and this pregnancy has
happened too late to revive a marriage badly damaged
by the eight trying years that came before.

She will raise her daughter on her own, making sure
that she will be strong and that she will never be
neglected like this once well-tended garden and
she, herself, has been.

Eileen has been published in various journals and anthologies. She placed first in a contest in “Writer’s Journal”, second in the “Allen Ginsberg Poetry Contest” and is a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Eileen lives and writes in the wilds of northwestern New Jersey.