An afternoon curling around us,
not my house nor yours for tea–
we sit in a borrowed mansion,
the two grantees—one a painter
trying to stop nomads from running.
the other a writer talking about eyes,
how they show what is being looked at.
And as if we met in an another time
each describes her mother’s frailty, lips,
hair, the stories we tell being theirs.
Now with respect for the afternoon pause
we plan to walk past the falls in Vermont
singing our children’s names, Donna,
Peter, Mary, Donna, Peter, Mary, Donna…
Rosaly DeMaios Roffman, IUP Professor Emerita, still teaches courses in creative writing and myth and started a myth/folklore Studies Center at Indiana University of Penna. She is the co-editor of Life on the Line, author of Going to Bed Whole, Tottering Palaces, The Approximate Message and Fall of a Sparrow, commissioned by the Pennsylvania Governors Institute for the Humanities. The recipient of a Distinguished Faculty Award in the Arts in Pa., and of National Endowment Grants, her latest book of poems, I Want To Thank My Eyes was published by Tebot Bach in 2012.