Monday, May 13, 2013




He slid further down as it reached his shoulders, in a kind of
nirvana not based on freedom from desires but on attainment.

-- from Salter's All That Is



The dog prances like a circus pony, silly in purple. The Filipino caregiver next door hoses the lawn, his phone on speaker, and as he inches toward her in navy Crocs his voice grows loud, Tagalog, and the water in the hose smells like childhood, redolent of summers. A car goes by, too fast, and the girl in the wheelchair drools over the hairbrush that she rubs over her mouth, over and over. The woman looks down at her arched foot and blue toenails, a pink ridge on the top from her clogs, the resignation of age. A crystal wine glass sits on the stone pathway, from another marriage, an unaccustomed sauvignon blanc. The sun sets slowly behind her back and the mockingbirds jeer.


10 comments:

  1. Of all the poetry you post, I love your own best.

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  2. You need an agent, Elizabeth. You are a born writer.

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  3. I can almost taste the wine from another life indeed...

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  4. what a portrait you paint with your words. I can smell that hose water, and taste it, too. A very sharp distinct childhood memory. Thank you for these beautiful words.

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  5. I can see and hear it all!

    (LOL @ kario)

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  6. I love this combination of sensual detail and echoes of memory. Why must the mockingbirds jeer?

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  7. You know this was like medicine for me, right?

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  8. perfectly written - better than any photograph could capture a moment in time

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