Flyleaves

For Mom, not finishing college

was an unhealable wound.

She would often mail me New Yorker

clippings bundled and taped to defy opening.

The reward for this frustration

was her arch choice of cartoons

or articles annotated

with her oblique jokes.

She was proud of writing

lyrics for popular songs

and winning a New York Magazine

contest with her confident absurdist doggerel.

On her shelf of small poetry editions

was a copy of The Dream Keeper inscribed

by Langston Hughes from her Broadway days.

Her copy of Quite Early One Morning contains

a bookmark from a store at Idlewild Airport.

Its flyleaf is signed

in Mom’s careful looping

hand with her name, “from” Dad, and the date—

two days after she gave

birth to me.

About the Author

Robert E. Shapiro is a very late-arriving poet. He only discovered the joys and therapies of poetry since retiring from clinical practice as a neurologist. He’s also a Professor emeritus of Neurological Sciences at the University of Vermont.