Barbara Eknoian Verse-Virtual 2016 December

December 2016

I was raised in New Jersey, but live in La Mirada, CA for years. I don't experience the "empty nest syndrome" as my family has moved back in along with their pets. I'm a long-time member of Donna Hilbert's poetry workshop in Long Beach. Some of my work has appeared in Chiron Review, Pearl, YDP, Silver Birch anthologies, and in my poetry book, WHY I MISS NEW JERSEY. I'm currently working on a book of short stories.

Photojournalism

At the doctor’s office I browse
through a Life magazine feature
about a young married couple.
One of the pictures shows
a young girl windsurfing,
her body slanted toward the sea.
She looks like a model posed
for a suntan advertisement.
Soon after her wedding,
she came down with multiple sclerosis,
a form so debilitating she wound up
in a convalescent home
and her young husband divorced her.
In the magazine layout, the pictures
reveal a startling transformation
from the lovely young girl
on the surfboard
to invalid trapped in a hospital bed,
her mother feeding her Jello.
I burst out crying in the waiting room.
The final shot: the back view
of her ex-husband in a raincoat
walking down a shadowy corridor
to visit her on a Sunday afternoon.

from my chapbook, Jerkumstances, (PEARL Editions, 2002)