Esther Altshul Helfgott: Poems




 

Driving Home from Mother's House Sister Father's Skull  At Sixteen  Dream  The Old Woman  If I Could Stop the Words  At the Hospital  The Psychiatrist and the Poet Dear Pat


THE OLD WOMAN

worked,
went to meetings,
rode buses,
shopped,
carried bundles home.
At demonstrations,
she held peace signs high,
shouted as if she owned
the keys to her life.
No one thought her body frail,
(least of all me).
She was supposed to last forever.
Or walk erect until the end.
That's a mother.
Now she's in a nursing home
screaming,
her old life shadowing the bed,
throngs of people marching,
wars raging,
children waiting.
 


"The Old Woman," was originally published in Mentress Moon: A Quarterly Online Journal of Writing and Art by Women, April 2000

Driving Home from Mother's House Sister Father's Skull  At Sixteen  Dream  The Old Woman  If I Could Stop the Words  At the Hospital  The Psychiatrist and the Poet Dear Pat


Esther Altshul Helfgott is a poet and independent scholar working on a biography of Edith Buxbaum. She earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Washington with a thesis on the politics and poetry of Holocaust poet, Irena Klepfisz. Esther's poems and articles have appeared in numerous periodicals, and she is the author of The Homeless One: A Poem in Many Voices (Kota Press, 2000). In her work as a writing teacher, Esther helps poets and writers bring their authentic voices to the page. She can be reached at: eahelfgott2@comcast.net 
 Esther Altshul Helfgott's Home Page
Esther Altshul Helfgott's neue Website >THE EDITH BUXBAUM JOURNAL<

 


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