The Pale Entreaties of Her Dreams
by Oliver Rice
Oliver Rice

Oliver Rice has received the Theodore Roethke Prize and thrice been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His poems have appeared widely in journals and anthologies in the United States, as well as Canada, Argentina, England, Austria, Turkey, and India. His book of poems, On Consenting to Be a Man, is offered by Cyberwit, a diversified publishing house in the cultural capital Allahabad, India, and is available on Amazon.

We do not know whether she kept a dairy.
But think of it.

Think of it.

Azaleas blooming, dying.
Her polka dot dress.
The cat on the porch across the20street.
A shower, a glistening sun.

Wait with her, alone, at this and that,
her mouth reminiscent of her people.
The curtain stirring.

Fearful of lightning.
Bats. Unintended consequences.

A flirt in her time.

Think of it.

What she had learned from ordinary afternoons,
from things left unsaid.

These are no simplicities, are they?
Her sense of her person
with sides,
moving about the rooms,
cupboard to creaking stair,
keeping the small rules of her morning

that stretched into the winter,
the years.

Walk with her in the town,
thinking how things must be what they are,
the maples,
the sparrows,
the shadows behind the windows.

Thinking what to hold close and what to let go.

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