My Mother Thought She’d Duped Him
when I was born. He went off hugging
the warm afterbirth muttering
flesh will be flesh; then just an echo
down the corridors, flesh will be flesh.
After chemo he took me
to the Wigge Shoppe.
Be my guest, my girl,
blonde, red, brown, black, curly, straight,
better than you were born with,
turn heads, turn hearts.
The Shoppe mistress flirted
with him as he unrolled
greenback after greenback.
My dresses freeze on the line,
in shapes of the wind.
All day I sleep.
The moon on iced windows
separates like mercury.
At any moment
a miracle could happen.
I want to go to Paris
and sit on a balcony in a quaint hotel
with filigreed hand-wrought iron elevators,
on the left bank of the Seine,
and listen to the swoosh and sweep of tires
on the rain-washed streets of Paris,
and think of poets dying,
rhyming as they die,
dying in meter.
They would love me and go dancing instead,
they would kiss me and come to bed instead
Lolette Kuby is an American expatriate living in Canada. Before her move nine years ago, she taught in the English Department of the Cleveland State University. Her doctorate is from the Case Western Reserve University. She is a member of PEN America. Her poems have appeared in fine journals, and she has books in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, also literary criticism. An Uncommon Poet for the Common Man: A Study of Philip Larkin’s Poetry (Mouton/DeGruyter). Please see her website for excerpts and more: www.lolettekuby.com
when I was born. He went off hugging
the warm afterbirth muttering
flesh will be flesh; then just an echo
down the corridors, flesh will be flesh.
After chemo he took me
to the Wigge Shoppe.
Be my guest, my girl,
blonde, red, brown, black, curly, straight,
better than you were born with,
turn heads, turn hearts.
The Shoppe mistress flirted
with him as he unrolled
greenback after greenback.
My dresses freeze on the line,
in shapes of the wind.
All day I sleep.
The moon on iced windows
separates like mercury.
At any moment
a miracle could happen.
I want to go to Paris
and sit on a balcony in a quaint hotel
with filigreed hand-wrought iron elevators,
on the left bank of the Seine,
and listen to the swoosh and sweep of tires
on the rain-washed streets of Paris,
and think of poets dying,
rhyming as they die,
dying in meter.
They would love me and go dancing instead,
they would kiss me and come to bed instead
Lolette Kuby is an American expatriate living in Canada. Before her move nine years ago, she taught in the English Department of the Cleveland State University. Her doctorate is from the Case Western Reserve University. She is a member of PEN America. Her poems have appeared in fine journals, and she has books in poetry, fiction, and non-fiction, also literary criticism. An Uncommon Poet for the Common Man: A Study of Philip Larkin’s Poetry (Mouton/DeGruyter). Please see her website for excerpts and more: www.lolettekuby.com