poetry

What is it, exactly?
For me it’s not so much about the rhythm,
nor the rhyme.
It’s more that it’s a microscope
through which I might see
what I’m actually feeling;
it’s the road into
under my own skin;
it’s the words I use
when I don’t know what to say.

a different kind of warning

I am older now than I ever thought possible. I did not believe I would ever be this ancient person. The doctor says I should have no wine at lunch, for my heart. But if you cannot have a little wine with your lunch, there is no life. If you are as old as I am, you believed a German would shoot you in the head before you were old enough to have sex with another human being. Everything beyond that becomes extra. The things people do to live long–drinking so much water, running up and down to ruin the knees–this is what the doctor should warn about.

~ Maile Melody, “Madame Lazarus” The New Yorker, June 23, 2014