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IRENE SIPOS

Click headshot for bio

LEAVES

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Oh little girl when you

were my little girl for real

we would go and gather

armfuls of leaves, maples

especially, setting flame

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to sidewalks all around us, how

could we resist? We captured them

and brought them home to iron

and press between layers of crinkly

waxed paper to scatter on tables

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and tape on windows. Soon they would

crumble and disappear as you, darling, are
not with me today so I must collect yellow,

orange and red beauties to place in an envelope addressed to you three thousand miles away.

leaves.jpg

“Jungle Fern”by Wendy Caldwell Maloney. Watercolor.

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Click here for Wendy's artists page.

TIRED

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Sitting across the aisle
on the B train
I look at the row of weary faces

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various shapes, sizes, colors, ages,
a horizontal explication of what it means 

to have woken many mornings

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to brave routine, to leave concerns at home

along with scattered laundry and unwashed 

dishes to head for same/same at work.

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I picture each of you, one at a time. I try to 

observe without you knowing and suddenly I

see round, soft faces, no creases in foreheads,

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no wrinkles like parentheses around eyes, no down 

turned mouths, no slumped shoulders. I see the plump babies you once were. And with that, a rush of hoping

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that you were affectionately held on generous laps, that you were sung tender songs, that you were offered
a bowl of blueberries as initiation to the messy pleasures

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of this world. I hope that occasionally you reach back,

even if only briefly to recall your beginning self as a visitor new to the planet, unencumbered and dear.

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p29 tired.jpg

"Tired" by Dorothy Keller. Photograph.

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Click here for Dorothy's page. 

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