{"id":6038,"date":"2026-04-21T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/?p=6038"},"modified":"2026-04-01T00:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T05:18:07","slug":"widow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/widow\/","title":{"rendered":"Widow"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<pre class=\"wp-block-verse\"><em>*On August 9th 1914, British troops departed to Germany for WWI. By the end of the barbaric war, 3-4 million women were estimated to have been widowed. <\/em><br> <br>Baby August has told her first untruth. <br>Buds bloom no more to meet a genial world. <br>The widow seizes all the pendant flowers  <br>with which she sought to bid her spouse farewell.<br>An ave before he was enmeshed in war.<br>Candles alive to witness one more love <br>have danced themselves to death and killed their flame. <br>She cannot rid her coverlet of wrinkles. <br>She cannot clasp a glass of wine without  <br>scowling askance at its momentous shade.  <br>She distrusts the cup; trusts more in malaise,<br>distrusts the very fairness of her skin. <br>She finds her pallor does not need her hug<br>to blanch her husband; fear can do as much. <br>Azures darken with the smoke of chimneys <br>whilst vaguely through an open door, she hears <br>her curtains, bandying with winds of fate. <br>He breathes, he breathes\u2014can she be widowed thus? <br>She strips her newly funereal bed,<br>dethroning love through taking down his roses. <br>Yet neglecting some petals on her sheets <br>which mourned their king\u2019s expulsion when\u2014 <br>having washed them too\u2014mistakenly\u2014they  <br>tinged her covers in a cruel crimson. <br>Then when she made some play of them in hand<br><em>the reddest of the petals poured their flush.<\/em> <br>Purpled sinks, bloodied hands but\u2014<em>of whose blood?<\/em> <br>She has read her husband\u2019s fate upon their walls.<br>Interpreting the muteness of her home<br>and wordless corridors as signs to know,<br><em>that though he breathes<\/em>\u2014she is a widow.<br><\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>*On August 9th 1914, British troops departed to Germany for WWI. By the end of the barbaric war, 3-4 million women were estimated to have been widowed. Baby August has told her first untruth. Buds bloom no more to meet a genial world. The widow seizes all the pendant flowers with which she sought to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"art_contributors":[],"literary_contributors":[468],"class_list":["post-6038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry","literary_contributors-demarco-rueben"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6039,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6038\/revisions\/6039"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"art_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/art_contributors?post=6038"},{"taxonomy":"literary_contributors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/novusliterary.com\/2025-archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/literary_contributors?post=6038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}