Vol. V

Summer 2009  

Poetry written by Cheltenham Township Adult School Workshop Participants      

poems
I
n this issue
 

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Edited by Kristine Grow &

Sandee Mandel

For more information about
 writing workshops offered by
the Cheltenham Township Adult School, contact:

Cheltenham Township Adult School
1414 Panther Road
Wyncote, PA 19095
Phone: 215-887-1720

 

Ruth Deming 

          Ruth Deming is a psychotherapist and poet. She invites readers to join her Writers Group the third Saturday of the month, 1 p.m., at Weinrich's Coffeeshop in Willow Grove, PA.

 

We Remember Our Husbands When They Die

                   

                   When you were my husband, Millard,
                   I tried to love you
                   but failed
                   there wasn't much to love
                   other than your Chinese eyes the color of
                   far-off rivers I never got to see
                   or your soft long-fingered hands
                   you balled into fists to pound the table
                   when your billfold went missing

                   I thought the art class might cure you
                   from your misery and hate
                   We hung up the charcoal nudes over my typewriter
                   but you refused to believe they were any good
                   maybe they looked too much like me

 

                   when you died last week
                   I went upstairs and took out the suit jacket
                   you left here last summer
                   examined it for traces of the man you grew into
                   without me

                   the pockets were empty
                   the label read Bobzien's of
                   Oklahoma City
                   my fingers searched
                   hungrily for any trace of you
                   so I could love you:
                   the mark of a pen
                   a business card in your pocket

                   I must content myself with a
                   few white hairs fallen on your back
                   I love you not enough to
                   bury my cheek in your sleeve
                   as I remember our wedding day
                   forty years earlier
                   your jacket, then, smaller, lighter in weight,
                   encompassing a bright pink shirt -
                   flamingo bright -
                   hiding your smooth hairless chest.


"Never be afraid

to sit awhile and think."

Lorraine Hansberry

 

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