REMEMBERING LATER IT’S THE ANNIVERSARY OF WHEN MY MOTHER AND FATHER ELOPED Poem by Lyn Lifshin

REMEMBERING LATER IT’S THE ANNIVERSARY OF WHEN MY MOTHER AND FATHER ELOPED

 

now dust under

the same maple

years after they

didn’t talk. Too

dazed to notice

it’s July, June’s

gulped. That

night in Vermont,

her suitcase with

a camisole she

bought for another

man who would

threaten suicide

hearing of my

other’s sudden

move. Letters on

palest blue paper

with blue ink, how

in his grief he

fell off a hay wagon

and, if not death,

he’d escape to

Paraguay. His blue

blues colors my

mother’s life

long after her

rash move

 

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