Laurie Lamon




Here
         
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.








                                    

 

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