Our first apartment bordered ugly Hell’s
Kitchen, a place for hanging your head out
The window, yelling for “police, police!”

The back door was my savior, leading me
To jade insertions of a picket fence
That hid a missing piece of Paradise,
Green growing something quite unlike itself.

Here: rose aroma heavy in blue air,
Pink heliotrope lovely as a laugh,
Mature hydrangeas, honey in their cheeks,
Green eyefuls powering up two lives when
The wormy world of midtown leaves the mind
Without its moorings. Secret is our yard,
And lion-lit for us alone, as bold
As some unanswered prayers — — survivor’s way.

When he complains — — “Always outdoors!” he’ll say,
“Bent, knees-down!” — — I plead debts I owe the day.

LindaAnn LoSchiavo

 

LindaAnn LoSchiavo’s plays have been produced in the USA and Adelaide, Australia. Her journalism has appeared in The Australian Women’s Weekly, Cleo, etc. Her poetry chapbooks ‘Conflicted Excitement’ (Red Wolf Editions 2018) and ‘Concupiscent Consumption’ (Red Ferret Press 2020), along with her collaborative book on prejudice (Macmillan in the USA, Aracne Editions in Italy), are her latest titles.

© 2019