Selected Poem

Sleeping Beauty in Old Age

 

At Whispering Woods Nursing Home

mirrors reveal the truth of time, beauty

faded into the years. All she wants to do

is descend into sleep, but attendants

pester her into crafts, jewelry making,

flower arranging classes. She has no use

for such things. Her Prince died years

before, a heart attack while riding his horse

across the golf course. The monarchy had

ended, he was a token Prince, all title, no power.

He left life insurance, but not enough.

They never had kids because Rosamond

didn't want to ruin her perfect size two figure.

She dreams about castles, and fairies, spinning wheels,

but when she wakes all that remains is

a sterile room, a view of the busy street,

other old faces wheeling by in the hallway

waiting for darkness filled with seamless sleep.

 

-- appeared in the Charlotte Writers' Club Annual Award Anthology 2004/2005 and in the Tipton Poetry Journal, Fall 2006