He had planted it
Beside the door.

Chubby hands had watered it.

There it stood, fresh and tender,
A living reminder of the lad
So quickly taken, by an illness
Rife among the young.

She tended the fragile stalk for twenty days.

She, whose agony of loss
Could know no respite.

How could a child, running out the door,
Remember it was there?

The screen flung back-
And all the mother's pent up grief broke forth.

She sat down, clasped her bibbed apron
To her eyes, and with her elbows
On her knees, wept bitterly.

The stalk of corn torn from the soil.

Her heart torn from her soul.