• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • About
  • Books
  • Reviews & PR Materials
  • Articles
  • Events
  • Rose Reads Livestream
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Rose Solari

Author. Poet. Playwright

April 18, 2014 Letters From Rose

Poems, New & Old

Spring is here and I’m happy to celebrate poems new and old. My third full-length collection of poems, The Last Girl, will be available later this year. Along with it, the ASP/SFWP consortium is also putting out a new edition of my first collection, Difficult Weather. Below you’ll find a sample poem from each book.

The poem below first appeared in Gargoyle 2013. Many thanks to Richard Peabody for selecting it.

 

Who, What, When

 

It’s the same old story. Girl meets boy,

girl thinks, that’s it, but boy is already

mixed up in somebody else’s story, so
girl settles for girl-pal status. She’s

good at that. Two years on, they meet

again at somebody’s sister’s party, but
now the story’s run by her shiny new

wedding ring. A theme emerges,

something to do with time. Resolution’s

unclear. A few years, a new setting,

almost clichéd, the mutual-friends,

out-of-town weekend wedding. She wears

her divorce like a French movie actress.

He’s had a crash course in living outside

of everyone else’s rules. For two nights
and a day, they live what might be

the start of a new story, one they can

scribble together. It looks good
on paper, and good in the photos

after. But boy is already committed

to singing that old, I gotta get down
the road, see what’s around the next bend

story. And girl, although she pretends,

wants someone who’ll stay. You know

the rest — the slow-mo drift, how

they talk every week, every month,

and then not. No reason, you say, to tell

this particular not-quite-a-story story

Except that years later, she who is not

in any sense anymore a girl hears

that the man that boy became is dead.

A quick stroke, then two slow weeks

of the brain’s decline. Perhaps it is

up to you, wise reader, to judge

what kind of a story this is. Why it

should matter, now, to the girl who isn’t,

to the woman who is, and is crying.

 

Share the books; spread the words; heap the love.
Share on Facebook Share
Share on TwitterTweet
Share on Google Plus Share
Share on Pinterest Share
Send email Mail

Categories: Letters From Rose

Previous Post: « The Next Big Thing
Next Post: A Reason to Dance »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

© Copyright 2023 Rose Solari. All Rights Reserved. Website by Sara Chandlee. Graphic design by Dewitt Designs