A pocketful of wry regret

Celebrations are tumbleweeds, 
Her family on the fringe.
They spin in circles in the kitchen,
Spring in someone's desperate eyes
Where clumped ideas 
Mold shared broken memories
To sure future accord.  

Birthdays, anniversaries, occasions
Each a cloud of eddied dirt,
Speck-flecks of try-too-hard 
To gather.

Glued with glum 
Gray resignation,
Each excuse well-heeled and worn out,
Even continents aren't just cause 
For an absence in her place.  
Ever conscious of the dreary face of 
Incoherent insult,
Easy rejection of the invite dies 
Like curled leaf on her tongue.

And so she travels, days.
And so she stands on the welcome mat,
And holds a pocketful of wry regret
Before the vacuum of reunion drains her light.