Poetry

Combing my hair, a sudden snarl
in the pink teeth.

How silent, death entering.

Wind does one thing with clouds,
 another with leaves;
the clouds go, go, go; the leaves

Above the kitchen table where my children color,
their big calendar frames a drawing—

Since I last looked up
from my book,
another appeared in the room

Dressed to the nines, and she is eighty-six!
A gold lamé gown,
Savage pearls in her pierced earlobes!
Diamonds blazing
That her Grandmother Haynes wore
A century ago!
In Washington City!
Before the War!

At first the surprise
of being singled out,
the dance floor crowded
and me not looking my best,
a too-often-worn dress
and the man with me
a budding casualty
of one repetition too much.

There is this sunny place where I imagine him.
A park on a hill whose grass wants to turn
Into dust, & would do so if it weren’t