Families
After my husband’s
saphenous vein
graft, and
he returned home,
I asked his doctor,
Should we sleep
in separate beds?
I might have
bacteria
that could infect
his wound?
No, the doctor
said.
His germs and mine
were intimately
acquainted,
grew up together,
raised families
in the same neighborhood.
I rested easier.
We were with
friends.
©2021 Muriel Thumm
A hibiscus
dreaming near a pond
in Winter
Haven, Florida
Nearby a
jasmine blossom
steams my nostrils
a reminder of
my bottled,
stoppered love
so long past
I need the
reminder
that it once
was,
extant beauty
for a time
which is all
any fragrance
is
Lusty as the
red rose
the deep-throated
hummingbird
Savors and
flies off
Its bounty, she
and I
cannot hold for
long
©2021 Muriel
Thumm
I keep you nameless
not because I don’t know your name
but because it got to be
a game we played
after a neighbor
from the Newcomer’s Club
dropped in as you and I were there
in my toy-strewn living room
wine glasses on the slate-topped table.
Daytime when other husbands were at work,
I introduced you as an old friend
to her dismay, wanting more.
From then on, it stuck
whenever we talked, and laughed.
But, after a few months
we took that right turn
and lost track of each other.
You may remember the baby
on my knee, same age as yours
in those earlier years
when you and your wife came to see us
in San Francisco, both families expatriates
from the Northeast. Albany followed for us,
Boston for you.
But that day, it was as if San Francisco
never happened,
Albany blew away in our clouds,
And the baby wasn’t drooling on my knees.
©2017
Families After my husband’s saphenous vein graft, and he returned home, I asked his doctor, Should we sleep in separate be...
