Poems

Waiting

It's 3:32--

I made it through

another day, I always said.

Daily, I waited

at the north door

of my high school

for my dad

to pick me up at four.

In my school's rolling

flash, waves, and currents

I was a quiet snail

drifting along the floor

of a different sea.

Now, at 5:30,

I wait at the north door

of another school

to pick up my tenth-grade son

from cross-country runs.

I listen to NPR,

make lists, read,

watch the neon kids

bounce out the locker-room doors

in orange-and-black letter jackets.

Unlike my 3:32 gratitude for

daily survival

these kids wear the look

of conquering life

as they know it.

by Linda Aschbrenner

Enigma

Frosted-glass sidelights

filtering afternoon

into my hallway.

Is the spiritual message:

little diffused light

does illuminate an

otherwise dark passage?

I pass through life.

Have I directive choice,

or predestined travel?

I struggle to be,

I vainly create

so my produce

might exist longer

than one added generation.

Is this folly?

Frosted sidelights

streaking sun, is

the conveyed meaning

symbolic of existence:

large dark passage;

man is a brief afternoon

that passed through?

by Lois Greene Stone

Three Milk Teeth

Three white baby teeth

motionless

on my bedside table

days ago they were inside your mouth

joined to your soft, firm, pink gums

alive while you added, subtracted, and sang

they were with you

now they have let you go

you didn't need them anymore

they were pushed out of your mouth

by a force

stronger than a mother

each time I hold them in my hand

I recall your baby days

how old were you when these teeth

pushed through your baby gums?

how many kisses were stored in these roots?

which first words passed over these surfaces?

these milk teeth

that were nourished by milk

have let you go

have let you grow

by Maureen Webster