By Tricia Thomas
Date: 20 September 1999

WELCOME Mat

She lives alone in a one-room heart
with her antique collection of
broken promises and unclaimed dreams.

He lives next door, but sometimes visits.
He’s a renegade by nature,
a free spirit with a tender heart.
He brings her lockets,
silk scarves, and perfume.
He cuts roses from his garden,
and lays them carefully on
her WELCOME mat
each morning.

It’s been a comfortable relationship, of sorts…
Coming in and out of each other’s lives for years.

She’s such a proper lady. 
He’s such a perfect gentleman.
She leads her separate life and he leads his.

He doesn’t know she’s saved his roses between
the pages of the romance novels by her bedside.
She doesn’t know he calls her name out in his dreams.

But they know their time is passing,
so he’ll take this one last chance,
knocking at the front door of her heart,
listening for stirs of life,
wondering if he’s really as
WELCOME
as the mat implies.

He waits patiently outside her heart,
holding his most perfect garden rose
while she leans beside the door,
secretly praying…
he’ll just find the damn key
she places nightly for him under
her WELCOME mat.

T2