The Story Garden 5.0
Poetry


Photograph by Sue Miller Demeter

Two televisions in separate rooms,
computers kindle and cast shadow.

Enough stalling: phone rings in half-breaths,
she starts "...have to tell you something--"

Pause. A life of caesura and blinking,
the quarter-steps into the undertaking.

"Just get off with it," but she won't.
Forgotten loves linger like pop music

Or food poisoning. On TV I'm watching
the news or news about news until

Eleanor of thirteen months walks with
first unaided steps. These have been

the months of nothing and long rides;
bird watching and coitus interruptus,

Our year of sargassum. One daughter
walks, the other menstruous; both

full of laughter, Demeter undisguised.

--Kenneth L. Clark
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