*** For my mother
At 92 she stares
Out the window
At the outside world
The mens’ Brooks Brothers strident
Conquering stride
Andriods in the laps
Of their hands.
She remembers his--
Palms stained with ink
Clasping a Daily News
The bellicose headline of
The New York Post
Crying for Brezhnev
“Big Red is Dead”
The smell of
Martinis on his breath.
She was one of those harried women
In the black SUVs
Work, children
Managing her life
A litany of baggage
Waiting to be
Delivered
On time.
She watches
The construction crews
Rip the street apart
Their clumsy reinvention
Of her town.
She sits with a tight grey bun
Her hands like angry crabs
Claw her cup.
Steam from her coffee
Just adds to her mist
Behind this frame
Of time.
Author Bio:
Doug Holder's latest collection of poetry is "Last Night at the Wursthaus" (Grey Sparrow Press). Holder teaches writing at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston and Endicott College in Beverly, MA. He recently retired from McLean Hospital, where he ran poetry groups for psychiatric patients for almost 30 years.
RSS Feed