~ Delta Poetry Review ~

Madeleine French

Abecedarian by the Pool

After my swim, I stream water on the deck

before taking up my towel with shriveled fingers.

Catching my breath I see hydrangeas, puffy blue

dresses stiff and soft; crinoline and silk.

Each burst is a blend of bright blue petals, fresh as

faces at desks. They gaze up from another time, when I’d

gush about Austen and Dickinson, and occasionally

haul desks into a circle for poetry discussions.

If some were bored—well, that’s English. It’s

just that I’ve imagined them all still blooming,

kept their teenage angst alive in memory. Now one is

lost, and I’m a little lost, too, beneath a butter-soft sun

making nebulas of teal water in my backstroke’s wake.

Not one who confided secrets, yet an

original kind of thinker, and always a

pleasure to have in class. Attentive and serious, her

quiet demeanor masked a quirky sense of humor. Now,

reflecting on the half-smile I’d coax from her, I’m

stunned by the unwelcome thought I might have done more. Still,

two pm is no time for regrets—in a long life, you learn guilt has no lessons.

Under the retaining wall by the pool, a chipmunk scurries to its den.

Violet and teal and green comfort me: Hydrangeas and pool and grass.

We all close our eyes to see better through that

xanthic hue recollection casts. Yellow weaves its soothing

yoke between past and present. And Time scampers off, along the

zigzag path of that chipmunk, darting home.

Madeleine French lives in Florida and Virginia with her husband. A Best of the Net nominee, her work appears in Identity Theory, ONE ART, Susurrus, The Madrigal, West Trade Review, Door Is A Jar, Thimble Literary Magazine, and elsewhere. She is working on a full-length poetry collection.