The RetroLounge Daily Poem Thread (Fri 7/13/2007)

[RetroLounge]

My Aunt Raises Violets from Africa

All those loose threads
from her sewing, trailing
off bobbins toward Chattanooga,
Nashville, Myrtle Beach, Niagara
Falls. She snapped them at the hem
with her teeth, those worn
hitching posts.
She never learned to drive.
Didn't leave Grandma's
yard for thirty years.
Her Singer just hummed.

She never stopped wearing
that engagement ring he gave her at twenty,
measuring time by how deep
it sank into her finger
even after he died, still her fiancé,
an old man living with his mother.
We only whispered his name.

At night, after the Bible verses,
she'd coat herself with vapor rub,
thick and Vicks blue,
then dial up the DJ
who knew her voice,
yearning for the smooth of Englebert
soothing her into bed
back to back with Grandma.

When I spent the night,
we'd tend the violets
lined like bassinets
along the north:
double lavenders, crystal
stars, angel blues, pink
persuasion. So careful.
We never touched their velvet
not even the undersides.
We just turned them each day,
their faces straining
toward the sun.

Janice Moore Fuller

****************

RL

If you have a request for a certain Poet, post their name in the thread and I will find a poem by them and post it...

if you want to see some of my poetry, see the blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/retropaul

[Justpat]

1. Linda Pastan please.

Thanks, RL

[RetroLounge]

4. You got it...

She's good...

:hi:

RL

[MissMillie]

2. that was lovely

thank you!

[RetroLounge]

5. You're welcome

:hi:

RL

[wildhorses]

3. patience is purple, i think --

i don't know why
that idea popped in my head.

:donut: :hi:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

6. My dear Retro...

Oh, this is such a sad one.....

And delicately lovely as well...

The flowers are her babies......

Instead of the real ones she wanted to have with him...

He never married her....how poignant this is.......

Thank you, sweetie... :hug: