BACKYARD ROSES
When the hour is sad in September
and when it isn’t
Jon or I, at the kitchen table
looking out at the backyard garden newly minus its chorus of black-eyes susans
observes, “There are two roses plus what looks like a bud.”
“Yes there are,” answers the other.
Later in the day Jon will go outside to take a photo
and by then, sometimes, the two roses will be bigger and the bud a tiny half-blown actual rose.
And all three seem redder than before
whether or not this later hour is less sad.
from “A Lady of 80” (Alien Buddha Press, 2024)
Bio:
Marion Deutsche Cohen is the author of 32 collections of poetry or memoir; her newest poetry collection is “Stress Positions” (Alien Buddha Press), and her latest prose collection is “Not Erma Bombeck: Diary of a Feminist 70s Mother” (Alien Buddha Press). She is also the author of a book of #MeToo poems, two controversial memoirs about spousal chronic illness, a trilogy diary of late-pregnancy loss, and “Crossing the Equal Sign”, about the experience of mathematics. She teaches a course she developed, Mathematics in Literature, at Drexel University’s Honors College. Other interests are classical piano, singing, Scrabble, thrift-shopping, four grown children, two grown step-children, and six grands. Her website is marioncohen.net .
30 for 30 is sponsored by Potomac Review
