January 2025
Bio Note: I have always had branches for bones and leaves for hair. A true Daphne at heart, I write poetry and memoir along with visual art in media of collage, mosaics, and wool felting. I appreciate, as a hometown New Yorker, my home in California where gardening is an everyday adventure and possibility. Previous publications include F(r)iction, Lake Affect, and Still Points Quarterly.
Reruns
If there’s a haunting in that house it’s me
Old clapboards back east wheezing
in the frigid wind of winter
After all, the place is 103 now
and who can say but the very old
what our bones will tolerate
She was 20 years young
when my family grew into her
gray siding hunter green windowsills
the color of November sky
When I came along there was
yellow outside with a splash
of wine for the trim
although beer was the working class
escape of choice, and a lot of it
To drive by now is dangerous
for that very reason, the drive-by
She still wears her yellow dress
but it’s torn in a few places
and no one mends anymore
The magnolia tree I planted
with glorious pink nipples
nursing spring from winter manhandling
every April that still bullied with blizzards
My living spirit is still in that kitchen
more yellow under the Saturn ring
of unflinching fluorescent light
Drunken arguments still not settled
after decades of deceased warriors
lie in rot or in ashes under marble
It doesn’t matter anymore
I’m the only witness
like a child actor
who watches in sadness
at the late night reruns
©2025 Diane Funston
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