When I saw the photo you took of me below the portico
of the National Portrait Gallery, my arms clasped behind my back,
I could see the man on the steps holding a phone to his ear,
the tourist, perhaps, walking in our direction, the girl
leaning against a wall, smoking a cigarette,
and then, in my profile, how I look like my mother
who does not know I was here, who has not seen me in years
or feel how the bones of my face ache when I lean
my hand against hers when I am tired.
After His Death
Not the one when I said I wanted it you gave me.
Winter was behind you in the bare trees the trees
you planted too close to the house.
I said the one left before bed
on the table with the wallet and coins the handkerchief
you remember this he twisted and dipped into paint
working a corner
as when an insect alights adjusts the manner of wings.
Now the cap is visible is blue.
Laurie
Lamon’s poems have appeared in journals and magazines including The
Atlantic, The New Republic, Plume, Ploughshares, J Journal: New Writing
on Justice, The Literary Review, and others. She has two poetry
collections published at CavanKerry Press: The Fork Without Hunger, and
Without Wings. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and she was
selected by Donald Hall as a Witter Bynner Fellow in 2007. She currently
holds the Amy Ryan Endowed professorship at Whitworth University in
Spokane, Washington, and she is poetry editor for the literary journal
Rock & Sling.
