"Three women laughing, that is powerful"

______

Beth recommends these on line literary sites.

______

Contact
Ms. Janzen

Three Women

Three women at a table.
One wears silk
another wears red
the third smokes too much.

The red one has a ring
the silk one sings
(but only when the birds sleep)
the smoke one burns
____(especially a book
____from her husband's library
____she burns that.)

Their laughter whistles
through the bones of buildings
through the secret holes
and abandoned nests.

____Three women laughing,
____that is powerful.

In the street, the cars cough
men grip their umbrellas;
in the park the earth mumbles
as it turns some old graves.

____And you turn to go
____(walk on walk on)
____not knowing the three women
____have cleared your fresh road.






Queen of Goodbye

You said goodbye
from a moving train
more than once,

but your hope to be etched
like the vines on lost wineglasses
is a black and white film
which skips at your parting

____the train at the platform
____as you lean from the window
____your red hankie (black now)
____Fluttering. Yearning.
________Your whole life you've been pulling away.

____The time he sang I love you
____as the waterfall whispered
____as you arched your neck for kisses
____as the birds congratulated
________Mere prelude to this endless leaving.

________But did you know--
________________film melts from a projector's heat.

Ignore the now inevitable
bitter words and distances.
The door slam. So mundane.

____You always dream
____the retreating train
____the witnesses
____the hankerchief bold in the wind.