Santa Fe Poetry Broadside
Issue #19, March, 2001 : --  1 -2 -3 -4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 -10 -11 -12
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Mary McGinnis: Trail of Songs

                 

MAKING TOO MANY FRIENDS

Ann Landers said to be kind,
so I made friends with everyone;

drop by again, he said,
or let me drop by you.

It was 1968, and I had not yet met
the love of my life, so I said

the transoms are open,
bringing in the smell of spring blooms.

He wrote me that love was forming in him.
The day he visited, we sat on my lumpy single

bed, saying very little. It was before Janis Joplin,
so I don't remember what we listened to,

what we ate or drank. It was probably before
I broke up with Arthur,

and started my first round of insomnia, it was before
I walked and ran with grief shooting me forward,

it was before Tim, it was before I quit my job,
it was before I was old enough to not trust love letters.

It was before he called in the middle of the night,
suggesting sexual positions.

It was before I found the first poetry group,
it was before I learned to listen to myself.

It was before I met Arthur's friend Bob
who had been in the same state hospital,

who said when you really love a girl,
you'll think her shit tastes like ice cream.

No, no, it had to be
after that.



Copyright © 2001 Mary McGinnis.

About the poet.

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Issue #19, March, 2001 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.