susanstinson: (Default)
susanstinson ([personal profile] susanstinson) wrote2006-07-26 09:10 am

Peaches in July

Praise for the fat old ladies.
Praise our bristles.
Praise our groaning in the morning
as we negotiate our nightgowns,
appliances and pills.

Praise the unquenchable carnality
of our coughs, full of moist depths,
and the way our mouths hang open
and our faces converge in gatherings
of ineffectual concentration
as we give another round of dominoes
our (impure? because, after all,
competititive and human) best thoughts.

We lose, of course, but play again.
The nightgown tears on the seam above the breast,
but we wear it, still, unmended,
while young women make big curls
in their hair with juice cans,
the results glossy and time-consuming,
as if the war were never over and
victory gardens were all lucky girls might sow.



Lake Buchanan, TX 2006

[identity profile] charlottecooper.livejournal.com 2006-07-26 01:56 pm (UTC)(link)
What a beautiful poem. I feel transported away from my depressing desk over to Texas, like a guest at your family do.

[identity profile] susanstinson.livejournal.com 2006-07-26 01:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Whoosh! The magic of being a web expert, filling in or not...

[identity profile] charlottecooper.livejournal.com 2006-07-26 02:12 pm (UTC)(link)
There is no magic in this place at all, alas.

[identity profile] susanstinson.livejournal.com 2006-07-26 02:17 pm (UTC)(link)
The magic of being whooshed away. The secret, squeaky power of defiant shoes, righting all wrongs. The insistent, transcendent, stealthy squeak of your own expert heart.