Phone Call in the Night


My husband’s daughter
used to call at 2A.M.,
closing time at a bar
two hundred miles away.

She cried into his ear,
sometimes shrieked her demand
that he jump in the car
and drive to her rescue.

Time and again he sighed
with patience I never knew,
talked her down
off her cliff of fumes.

Told her in a voice so sweet
I fell in love again
that he’d speak with her
tomorrow.

Her routine emergencies
could not become ours
yet our hearts floundered
in our chests each time
the phone rang at 2A.M.



I’ll Stand in Silence


I received what was left of you
by registered mail today—
seven pounds of ashes
and crushed bone.

As soon as we have
a clear crisp blue day,
I’ll drive up the mountain
to a wooded place I know.

Down the hillside
and along the stream you loved
I’ll scatter your remains.

When the square cardboard box
is empty, I’ll stand in silence,
think of you.

I’ll replay the times we danced
and you made me laugh,
tamp down the memories
that make me weep.

You’re already on your way
to wherever you must go next.
Now your ashes can melt
into the mountain soil
where your heart always longed to be.


Patricia Wellingham-Jones is a former psychology researcher and writer/editor, published in many journals and Internet magazines, including HazMat Review, Ibbetson Street, Edgz and Wicked Alice. She has a special interest in healing writing and writes for the review department of Recovering the Self: a journal of hope and healing. Chapbooks include Don’t Turn Away: poems about breast cancer, End-Cycle: poems about caregiving, Apple Blossoms at Eye Level, Voices on the Land and Hormone Stew.