Still humming alleluias, she stepped softly Into the kitchen, laid her hat on top the icebox, And lifted the heavy lid of the wood cook stove. Stone cold.

Not a single small coal.

He’d let the fire die today. Would he never bend? On any other day, he would have kept a snug flame. He’d even been known to start peeling the potatoes. Today he sat in the silent parlor, the chilly parlor, At five past noon awaiting his dinner, his late dinner. She sighed and bowed her head.

Then

Hanging the bibbed apron around her neck, firmly Tying the strings, she crumpled newspaper, laid on thin sticks of kindling, small wood, larger chunks, and struck a match, again humming alleluias.

Christine E. Stratton

Originally published 2002 in Free Verse (Marshfield, WI.)