Sarah White Verse-Virtual 2016 April

April 2016

I am a retired professor of French, living in New York City, painting, writing, and trying to learn Portuguese for a trip to Brazil. . My most recent publications are poetry collections: The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres, 2014) and Wars Don’t Happen Anymore (Deerbrook Editions, 2015)

The Meeting of Poets Anonymous

it opens with a prayer
in prose. I rise: “Hello,
I’m Sarah, and…
I’m a poet.”
Hello, Sarah.

“I had an anniversary—
six months without a line.”
Applause. “But you know
how it goes—
I wrote a verse
about an adolescent
girl I know (her wanton
clothes). I called it Schmatta
and thought it might amuse
her mom and dad,
but they were hurt.”

Have you made amends
to those you harmed?
I explain my e-mails,
and sit down.

Others stand,
admit to gains
and losses in their fight
against the muse.

We close, schmooze a bit,
depart. The pavement’s
full of gaps.

Some of us will slip.

-first published in The Unknowing Muse (Dos Madres Press, 2014)