Amelia Silva

Sixteen nights I paced the widow's walk
Scanning the indifferent waves for signs of your return

Sixteen days I prayed in church
My rosary cutting into my palms like mackerel teeth

I clung to the memory of my Tomas standing there on the deck of the Izabel
The other sailors' wives watching with envy as you blew me a kiss with a rakish grin

That was the last time I saw you
That was the last time I saw myself

I was only twenty-six, beautiful and too proud to accept consolation
Holding my head high in town, pouring myself into my bakery and my children

I gorged on bitterness and linguica and malassada
I became fat on sweet bread and nata and regret

Men no longer pursued me
They whispered and laughed behind my back

Years passed, the children deserting the island one by one
I grew too heavy to climb the stairs to the widow's walk

I ate myself into an early grave
The diggers remarking that I wouldn't have fit were it not for your empty plot

Now I lay here in the hill, still alone
The dull thudding of the surf traveling to me through the ground