Thirty-Two Years at 19 Maple Street, by Robin Dellabough

A shade won’t go up     doors too swollen to shut       floors rubbed grey
gutters blown off                flaking leather chair        wooden table cracked    
chrome covered in rust and lime        peace lilies failing to thrive 

–

still

–

I can’t move
away from candle-lit faces
circling feasts, lying on rugs laughing
at nothing, at everything,
those children I tended to tenderly rising,
even the stormy words,
tears for the varieties of grief.
Some part of my I embedded in this plaster
peering out at what I’ve had or what I wanted.

_

Robin Dellabough is a poet and editor with a master’s degree in journalism from UC Berkeley. Her first collection, Double Helix, was published by Finishing Line Press in May 2022. Published poems in Stoneboat, Fifth Estate, Tiny Spoon, Maryland Poetry Review, Blue Unicorn, Negative Capability, Gargoyle, and more. She has studied with Alex Dimitrov and Kathleen Ossip, at the Hudson Valley Writers Center. She is currently the Projects Director for Publishers Marketplace/Publishers Lunch.

© 2023, Robin Dellabough