Marriage
My husband is planting a packet of snap peas,
knees in dirt, as he pats the earth,
the way he rubbed our daughter’s back
when she cried. I see him rest
against the stockade fence,
half-smiling, half-frowning, speaking
a little to himself. Hear his huge sighs
which he always denies.
He comes inside for his plaid gabardine jacket
I’m in our kitchen, still married after forty years
to a man who doesn’t look up
from his crossword for hours.
I chop onions, he opens Szymborska’s Collected Poems
I checked out of the library.
He often browses books I am reading
just when I need them,
He reads her poem about Job.
Job listens, prostrate. Soon he’s got back
his camels, sheep, fields, etc.
closes the book,
pulls on his garden gloves.
I want to know why peas
need a fence to lean on.
That’s the way it is, he says.
Women Doctors
All my male doctors are retiring
to Hilton Head, Delray Beach, Costa Rica.
I suppose they’ve had enough
of breasts and vaginas.
Now, my doctors are young women
who understand menstruation, childbirth,
post-partum depression.
They touch me with knowledge
of their own bodies.
Their voices are soft,
I don’t always hear what they say.
But they explain my ailments, […]
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Georgia O’Keefe
Stieglitz shot her in black and white,
A pubic portrait.
Old, face dried up from a lifetime of sun,
she loved a young potter, […]
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Carole Stone is professor of English and Creative Writing, emerita, Montclair State University. Her most recent books are LATE, Word Press, HURT, THE SHADOW, Dos Madres Press and AMERICAN RHAPSODY, Cavankerry Press. Poems have appeared in Blue Fifth Review, West Branch, Slab.