May 2017
Laurel Peterson
laurelpeterson@att.net
laurelpeterson@att.net
I’ve been writing since I was eight, despite being told that I shouldn’t. Writing revealed too much. This is why I tell my students they should never be afraid to put the truth on the page. I’m a community college English professor, who alternately loves and despairs of her students. I’ve written lots of different things—newspaper columns, academic stuff, poems (including two chapbooks and a forthcoming full-length collection) and a couple of mystery novels, one of which will be published this spring by Barking Rain Press. I have the very great pleasure of serving the town of Norwalk, Connecticut, as its poet laureate. At this very moment, my dog is sniffing through my trash for a draft of something to chew on. My website: www.laurelpeterson.com
LEWY BODY DEMENTIA
Walking is all
I want, to walk home
to Warren, who’s
been gone already
a decade, to my sweet
house, inhabited by
strangers who planted
a plastic play jungle
under my lemon tree.
I want to walk
to the corner where Dakota
the dog will lick
my fingers. On Thursdays
my friends will come
for bridge. On Sunday,
I’ll be in church,
where Jesus saves.
But that young man they say
doesn’t touch me—
I’m too old for him—
keeps me here.
Sometimes, his brown hands
tie me to the chair
so he can
change the sheets,
remove the evidence
of our lovemaking.
LEWY BODY DEMENTIA
Walking is all
I want, to walk home
to Warren, who’s
been gone already
a decade, to my sweet
house, inhabited by
strangers who planted
a plastic play jungle
under my lemon tree.
I want to walk
to the corner where Dakota
the dog will lick
my fingers. On Thursdays
my friends will come
for bridge. On Sunday,
I’ll be in church,
where Jesus saves.
But that young man they say
doesn’t touch me—
I’m too old for him—
keeps me here.
Sometimes, his brown hands
tie me to the chair
so he can
change the sheets,
remove the evidence
of our lovemaking.
© 2017 Laurel Peterson
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