Before the Pink House
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I miss the days with two plates of eggs;
scrambled and warm, your face pressed
to mine like a picture captured through glass
beside the window’s ledge, the hedge
where bees would swarm around jasmine
potted jardinières that lined our home
on an ordinary street. Where we would walk
with shadows ignoring the coarseness
beneath our feet like barefoot nomads
yours, one step ahead of mine, so carefully
avoiding this unbearable existence of following.
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The Waiting Room
It’s the morning of your appointment
and you pretend there’s nothing wrong.
You kiss the children, pour milk
over Wheaties, and don your special
dress for the waiting room where you’ll
await the verdict that might destroy
your life. You choose the dress
that hangs in back, tucked between
Summer and Fall, understated
and black to suit your practical mind;
easily tossed if you hear bad news
and it’s the one you wore to your mother’s
funeral; pockets still full of prayers.
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’The Waiting Room’ is a part of the poetry collection ‘Hasting Notes in No Particular Order’ from Aldrich Press. The poem is previously published in Best Poem.
Carol Lynn Stevenson Grellas is a six-time Pushcart nominee, Best of the Net nominee and the 2012 winner of the Red Ochre Press Chapbook contest. She has authored several collections of poetry including her latest collected works, Hasty Notes in No Particular Order. Her work has appeared in a wide variety of online and print magazines including: The Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine, War, Literature and the Arts; The Department of English at the U.S. Air Force Academy, Able Muse, Poets and Artists, and many more. According to family lore she is a direct descendent of Robert Louis Stevenson. www.clgrellaspoetry.com
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Sassafras Literary Magazine 