Nancy Allinson

A Newspaper at Brookside Gardens

A newspaper left on the park bench
opened to the obits,
a woman sits next to the dead
whose lives are remembered
sometimes next to crosses
or Stars of David.

A newspaper on the bench
its front page announcing more death
from wars the woman did not start;
deaths in the Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan,
Liberia, Syria, and Ukraine.
The woman sits next to the news.

A newspaper on the bench
opened to the comics page
the woman never reads except
when she doesn’t know how to laugh
without help from pictures and captions
the woman sits next to something funny.

A newspaper left on the bench
not yet opened, still in its plastic bag,
moist from the dew
bright from the morning sun in the gardens.
The woman sits and waits
deciding whether or not to open
the pages in front of the geese,
the roses, the turtle, the pond.

(c)    Copyright 2016 by Nancy Allinson

Nancy Allinson is retired from the federal government where she worked in training and development.  She is a Maryland poet whose work has appeared in Poet Lore, The Federal Poet, Minimus, Potomac Review, Beltway Quarterly, District Lines and other literary publications.   Her first book of poetry, Harmony Not Yet Broken, was published by Finishing Line Press, in June 2015.  Nancy is currently emcee for Kensington Row Bookshop Poetry Reading Series in Kensington, MD.