MaineCourse

Mock Orange

Mock Orange

My mother comes in the front door.
That smell is too much, she says, nodding
toward the mock orange.
Those little white flowers are pretty,
but the bush smells too ripe, don't you think?
Maybe you should cut it back.
It smells like those locust trees in New York
near the hospital-so sweet
they'd take over your senses, cross the line.

I tell her I dreamed of Jeff last night.
I don't like to think about dreams.
I push them away, try to forget everything bad
like when Jeff insisted on telling me about...you know.
She looks out the window.
I told him I knew but didn't want to know.
I didn't want my friends to feel sorry for me.
I went to the beauty shop when he was sick.
and played bridge with my ladies.
And honey, when you write poems about him,
you don't say what he died of, do you?

Linda Goodman Robiner

Where have all the bloggers gone
Loooooooong time pa-a-ssing?
Where have all the bloggers gone
Long time agoooo?
Where have all the bloggers gone?
Gone (forever?) every one.....
When might they all re-turn?
When might they aaall
re-turn?

However unheralded your last several posts, this is a lovely piece, full of poignant distinctions of generations, proprieties, listening but not hearing, memory triggers -- rich stuff. And all with great cadence. Thanks.

Posted by paul.

Wait a moment...there is someone lurking in the background waiting to call it "rubbish."

Posted by Me.

Of course there is someone to call it rubbish. ME!

Posted by Matt.

Posted by Michael at September 10, 2003 06:00 AM