May 2024
Irene Voth
irenevoth@hotmail.com
irenevoth@hotmail.com
Author's Note: Real scenes and a joyful ride on the transportation of imagination. That’s all.
Accent Table
Plump dark spindles
that once lined the spine of a stairway
are repurposed as shapely legs beneath
a small, round, glass table top – a quaint piece
also salvaged for its former elegance.
“An accent table for our patio,” he announced from
the doorway of his garage workshop. Then he
set it down on the pavers next to the plastic
patio chair we’d spray painted Vikings purple-and-gold,
clueless that such an accent table would change everything.
At odds with Minnesota-speak’s rounded
O's, as in “Siddown. Take a load off,” our patio
suddenly acknowledged the table with “Perfect
spot for a chessboard, Old Boy,” its clipped,
posh voice laced generously with hard R’s.
Those were early days, as they say across the pond.
Now tall glasses gleam with golden ale
as we bask in afternoon sunshine on the patio,
pondering the ambitions of kings and queens,
the diagonals of bishops and the sturdiness of rooks –
all former Viking fascinations vanquished.
High School Annual
Every year, on a warm May afternoon,
we stacked textbooks, trashed notebooks,
crushed and tossed longings
we’d secretly taped inside our lockers,
and wiped those lockers down inside
and out; warm sudsy water spiked
with bleach to dispel the smell of books.
The nuns had locked the classrooms
before returning to Mankato for the summer.
They’d locked the library too, but I
peered once more through its windows,
longing to be among the weighty shelves where
I’d first found Animal Farm, Catcher in the Rye,
Lord of the Flies, and The Grapes of Wrath.
For me, it would be a long summer. For me,
nothing could dispel the spell of books.
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