Wealth, Economy & Madness
Alfresco
by Virginia Aronson
Your bed overwaxed linoleum
yellow-spotted insistently ugly
where you set your bags chipped
green-ringed porcelain bubbling
all night your closet a plastic ring
on the stall door that locks thank
God from within where do you rest
your head ain't this a rest room
when will they call you lady ain't
this the ladies room you deserve
more than a brittle smile cold dime
in an overwashed fish-white palm
where did the child go last time
you remember picnic tables red-checked
another woman's lifetime you want
a night on soiled sheets ripped
Oriental under the silk fray of that
pink Italian lamp you inherited lost
in the fire, flood, earthquake, divorce
what did you in ain't it disease
that uncurable grief you feel disposable
on stage at the same time your face
so grotesque in fluorescence cracked
mirror thank God the hot water runs
your fingers blued and bent over
in a haiku of loss tonight
you pillow a big Bloomies bag
full of some woman's dreams yours
you flush til the airless room fills
with shit what a flamboyant waste.
has had more than 50 poems published
in various literary magazines since 1993. She is
the author of over two dozen books on nutrition, health,
and creativity, including Celestial Healing
(Penguin, 1999), and The White House Family Cookbook
(Random House, 1988). Aronson received a B.S. in
Nutrition and Health Science from the University of
Vermont in 1975, and her M.S. from Framingham State
College in 1977. She currently lives in Florida.