Curtains by Ruth Stone

Curtains

by Ruth Stone

(published in 100 Great Poems by Women, edited by Carolyn Kizer, 1995,

Ecco Press)

Putting up new curtains,

other windows intrude.

As though it is that first winter in Cambridge

when you and I had just moved in.

Now cold borscht alone in a bare kitchen.

What does it mean if I say this years later?

Listen, last night

I am on a crying jag

with my landlord, Mr. Tempesta.

I sneaked in two cats.

He screams NO PETS! No PETS!

I become my Aunt Virginia,

proud but weak in...