Then we’ll have to hold the feast of forgiveness.
This summer is too soon, this outdoor café
too far; two scallops drizzled with pea puree
too expensive. One of us would be left out.
Before long, it may be too late, far too late.
We’ll sit at Joan’s bedside, eat limp green salads,
drink water, ignore the view: parking garage
beneath sullen clouds. Alma, the unit nurse,
will bustle in, saying it’s good to forgive.
Our friend will drift off beyond us and our feast.
You will drone on. Maybe I’ll finally cry.
most recent books are Why We Never Visited the Elms (Poetry Pacific, 2022), Poetry en Plein Air (Pony One Dog Press, 2020), and On the Other Side of the Window (Pski’s Porch, 2019). Her poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Poetry Breakfast, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and Pure Slush’s anthology Home, among others. She has fond memories of taking art classes at the Worcester (MA) Art Museum with her father, drawing shoes, plastic grapes, and bottles. She lives in the DC area with the wry poet and flash fiction writer Ethan Goffman and their new cat Tyler.
