At Eighty
I have arrived
not properly prepared.
My shoes are wrong.
My tattered handbag
says too loudly
just how much I care.
Plus, I did not learn
in childhood how to be
with other people.
My first report card,
in Peterson penmanship,
says: Room for Improvement
in Playing Well with Others.
(Room. Acres of it,
if memory serves,
as it seems now
ever less inclined to do.)
Playing well:
with some acumen,
evincing keen proficiency.
Others:
the sticky wicket.
The report card further records
for time and for eternity
that this bone-skinny girl
does not come to school each day
with a clean handkerchief,
does not lie straight at naptime,
sings too softly,
seems often worried.
The latter noted down in script
at the bottom of the card -
by itself, I think, compelling cause
to trust the writer’s judgment
on the rest.
Gone Missing
You'd think if I got lost,
someone would miss me,
or notice only air
where I had been.
And so they would
miss, notice, wonder out loud
where I'd gone, how long
since anybody'd seen me.
Had I said good-bye,
called, written, hinted?
(As though words
might be made to answer.)
They would
- though not right away perhaps -
have made inquiries.
They who make
so many sorts of things.
But no one's noticed
I am gone.
Because I'm standing here
they will refuse to wonder
or inquire.
They will not look for me.
Some old woman
answers my front door.
My ailments wrack her frame.
She wears my shoes.
She tries get my bearings.
I tell her she should
let somebody know.
She says she can't think who
to tell, or what to say.
Linda McCullough Moore is the author of two story collections, a novel, an essay collection and more than 350 shorter published works. She is the winner of the Pushcart Prize, as well as winner and finalist for numerous national awards. Her first story collection was endorsed by Alice Munro, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and equally as joyous, she frequently hears from readers who write to say her work makes a difference in their lives. For many years she has mentored award-winning writers of fiction, poetry, and memoir. She is currently completing a novel, Time Out of Mind, and a collection of her poetry. www.lindamcculloughmoore.com