It’s easy to dote on a son; a man is another story.
I stop in the garden alcove where a famous actress once sat.
No one has it easy in love.
In an earlier era I’d still be married.
The body gets a little sick to remind me.
Speak up why don’t you.
The bougainvillea is paper-thin on purpose; ornamental by design.
Do I look like I can’t take care of myself?
I’m imagining a dress with tiny gold beads—hundreds—at the waist.
Mary Ann Samyn’s most recent collection is My Life in Heaven, winner of the 2012 FIELD Poetry Prize (Oberlin College Press, 2013). She is Professor of English and Director of the MFA program at West Virginia University.