The plastic swimming pool has been buried
then filled with water and lily leaves for the goldfish
which swim in slow circles as the water warms.
The heavy sun makes her bring out wet sheets
and drape them on lawn chairs
--this woman with a man's name--
who carried her daughter across mountains.
"Please sit," she encourages me,
and the sheets steam into my legs,
their cooling vapors.
...............................................................
She has spilled her coffee on the professor's desk.
We were discussing Foucault
and the limitations of Plato.
Now the professor tells us of the fine lacquers,
the impossibility of repair.
The impossibility of repair.
The daughter's bones that never straightened,
even across the ocean in the land that doesn't pay.
................................................................
Darshan has real jasmine.
The fragrant flowers she presses to her face.
We drink the warm mint tea,
laughing about the shells of lives we leave behind.
Author Bio:
Skaidrite Stelzer spent the first four years of her life in a refuge camp in the foothills of the Alp mountains. After immigrating with her family to Kalamazoo, Michigan, she spent her formative years as a displaced person, literally a woman without a country. Poetry always seemed the most natural language to her, since it allows the freedom to cross many linguistic and cultural barriers. Her work has appeared in many literary journals including, Eclipse, Baltimore Review, Glass, Fourth River, Georgetown Review, and The Third Coast. She currently lives in Toledo, Ohio and teaches writing at The University of Toledo.
then filled with water and lily leaves for the goldfish
which swim in slow circles as the water warms.
The heavy sun makes her bring out wet sheets
and drape them on lawn chairs
--this woman with a man's name--
who carried her daughter across mountains.
"Please sit," she encourages me,
and the sheets steam into my legs,
their cooling vapors.
...............................................................
She has spilled her coffee on the professor's desk.
We were discussing Foucault
and the limitations of Plato.
Now the professor tells us of the fine lacquers,
the impossibility of repair.
The impossibility of repair.
The daughter's bones that never straightened,
even across the ocean in the land that doesn't pay.
................................................................
Darshan has real jasmine.
The fragrant flowers she presses to her face.
We drink the warm mint tea,
laughing about the shells of lives we leave behind.
Author Bio:
Skaidrite Stelzer spent the first four years of her life in a refuge camp in the foothills of the Alp mountains. After immigrating with her family to Kalamazoo, Michigan, she spent her formative years as a displaced person, literally a woman without a country. Poetry always seemed the most natural language to her, since it allows the freedom to cross many linguistic and cultural barriers. Her work has appeared in many literary journals including, Eclipse, Baltimore Review, Glass, Fourth River, Georgetown Review, and The Third Coast. She currently lives in Toledo, Ohio and teaches writing at The University of Toledo.
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