The Widows 

Donald Hall 

Up and down the small streets, in which

no two houses are exactly

alike, widows of all ages

sit alone playing solitaire,

or knitting, or sometimes baking,

left in the big, empty houses.

Here are Mrs. Montgomery,

Mrs. Pilching, Mrs. Wolf, and

Mrs. Pelletier, all at once-

in a section of nine houses,

four widows. Sometimes they have bridge,

including either lunch or tea.

In the summer, separately,

widows spend a month in hotels

in New Hampshire, or sometimes Maine,

but never in Massachusetts.

In the winter, or some winters,

some of them go to Florida.

Book clubs, television, and ways

to supplement their small incomes

keep them busy. It is not a

bad life, they say, for there are so

many left like you, though no two

widows are exactly alike.