Margaret Chula
 


 
                                             months after he’s gone
                                              the bar of Ivory soap
                                               in his bathroom
                                                still holding
                                              the shape of his hands

     

                                            when I was twenty
                                            I sang like Mozart’s
                                            Queen of the Night
                                            now I hum like a cello
                                            between the legs of a lover 
 
 

                                            after many years
                                            drinking tea with an old friend
                                            gaunt shadows
                                            of her laundry
                                            drying on the line  
 


                                             after the cease fire
                                            refugees from Chechnya
                                            return to rubble
                                            sparrows weave the hair of children
                                            into their spring nests
 

 

                                            saying good-bye
                                            on the table between us
                                            an amaryllis bud
                                            just beginning
                                                  to open
 
 

                                            while sitting zazen

                                            idle thoughts follow my breath
                                            through the twilight hours
                                               and then the cry of geese
                                                     as they enter darkness

 

                      Next