Twelve middle-aged women meet monthly in Belmar,
in pale blue kitchens that hold old memories
of long gone children in glass jars on the windowsill.
They untangle with pens an unvented anger
towards the men they married
who have become careless in loving them,
who have hidden the other women -- but not well.
Outside, the breeze catches in an overturned umbrella;
the beach storm has already blown over,
and seagulls peck at the window
because the feeders have been left empty.
The women sit on worn couches watching
the colors of the sky light up the walls inside,
pastels soft and pink like the poems they want to write,
In Belmar, they leave out the real details:
small hands in the kitchen or a man to wake up to,
scribbled on a page in August.
in pale blue kitchens that hold old memories
of long gone children in glass jars on the windowsill.
They untangle with pens an unvented anger
towards the men they married
who have become careless in loving them,
who have hidden the other women -- but not well.
Outside, the breeze catches in an overturned umbrella;
the beach storm has already blown over,
and seagulls peck at the window
because the feeders have been left empty.
The women sit on worn couches watching
the colors of the sky light up the walls inside,
pastels soft and pink like the poems they want to write,
In Belmar, they leave out the real details:
small hands in the kitchen or a man to wake up to,
scribbled on a page in August.