FOREIGN FILMS
by Sam Pierstorff
It's growing back, I tell her,
touching her head as if wiry gray thorns
have spouted in place of hair.
She mumbles and pulls her cap tight.
Everyday she wears dull purple sweats,
walks from the kitchen to the couch
and waits with her feet propped up by throw pillows.
I rent movies and wake her when they are over.
She always says they were good films:
You have good taste, she tells me.
I hold her hand and help her to her bedroom.
Goodnight, I say. She whispers the same.
I close the door, listen to it brush against the thick
carpet and creak into a tight frame.
I walk away, afraid of the steps I take alone.
Sam Pierstorff lives
in Modesto, California. He is an English Instructor at Modesto Junior College,
where he teaches poetry and composition as well as runs their annual literary
magazine, Quercus Review. He reports his poetry has appeared, or will
appear in Rattle, slipstream, pearl, Chiron Review, Heeltap, Nerve Cowboy,
Louisiana Review, Bathtub Gin, Liquid Ohio, et al. Most recently he won
the Modesto and Dublin city Poetry Slams and was twice nominated for a Pushcart
Prize.
July - August - September
- 2002 , page
8.
Art by
Jane
Anderson
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