Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Ruth Lepson





AUNT DORA


You call when you want to tell me something happy--Ted's taking you to dinner at Pier 1, then you'll play Scrabble--or a girlfriend's coming for dessert and coffee.

I'm sitting on a bench by a pier and there's a wicker love seat bobbing peacefully on the small dock in front of me: how little of your life you lived

leisurely, and when things got worse you got sweeter--and I wonder why I spent my time on some who gave me little pieces of metal, glitter, or why I wondered who there was to love me.

You tell me, don't do what I did--marry again or you'll be sorry. While you, past hope of remarrying, read your joke books and laugh tenderly in the middle of the night when pain, anonymous, has kept you awake.

It's you who have learned who loves you. There you were, all my life long.





Knowing She was Loved


bright as that moon pin
above the grey trees of the cemetery

*

pastel matching shoes and bag
not sad gold but sweet silver

*

while Dora was moving on
the wake of the boat
smudged the glints in the water
the glint in her eye still evident

*

sweet small Dora in the bed
her right breast bruised
legs dotted with blood

we think of peacefulness together
say we’ll think of it apart

*

thunder to think
everything’s Paris
Dora was in Paris
Dora sits lightly in my heart



© Ruth Lepson





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