Shedding

Walking
For hours
Shedding
Along the way

Old memories
Old pains
Old lies

Like diamonds
Once valued
Now
Meaningless

In the context
Of today

Left behind
On the ground

Faded sentiment
Useless trappings

Withered leaves
To scatter
In the wind

Leaving room
For
Truth

Leaving room
For
Redemption

The opening
The changing

Of a soul

The Spin Cycle

She sits at the only table
In the laundromat

Bright orange lipstick
In crooked smears
Blurring the lines
Between

Then and now

Dressed in feathery cotton skirt
And starched linen blouse
She crosses veined gnarled hands
And waits for him to greet her

Thirty years her junior
He sits down opposite
Tilts his head to one side
And says, every time

Lois, is it?

Which is all the
Invitation she needs

It is always the same
Life story revealed
The streets of Detroit
In the 1930’s

Where self-respecting
WASP young of
High brow America
Played games in the streets

At dusk

And joked about the
Dirty irish

Or

The nasty spics
The stupid pollacks
The lying niggers
The thieving jews

Pick one or choose
Your own
The only variable in her
Otherwise

Word-for-word memoir

Recited each time
With the passion of conviction

Sticking like honey
On the silver tongue
Of a golden girl

And the message
If ever there was one

Lost in the whir of
The spin cycle

After one too many rinses