Exuent Omni

At first, all those years ago they 
presented as a solemnly contented 
tandem approaching aged maturity 
speaking of their most recent trips, 
disparaging the natives of those lands, 
boasting of the gooseberries their 
garden produced. We politely took it
all in, took too just as politely the gifted 
basket that set me on the tedious track 
of jam-making in the nagging spirit of 
waste-not. Over the years encounters 
were casually friendly, replete with
long fondly recalled memories of 
trips' minor offences. Then it was only 
Margaret we might encounter, moving 
with understated deliberation between 
her street and ours. Chance meetings 
found her progressively shifting from
tentative presence to wanly transparent 
perambulation, as age urged compromised 
health to settle deep within her sinews
'till her presence became a parody of 
desiccation, a wispy, white reflection 
of her former slightness. Her husband 
decays preferentially more privately.