Roxane Dumontheil

“The only love that feels like love is the doomed kind. (Fun fact.)”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation

“Spring Cleaning

All morning
I have been pulling
skeletons out of the closet
the old bones that
keep me awake at night
the old faces I see
in my dreams.

But in the closet
there are only old letters
old clothes that don’t fit
boxes of souvenirs
postcards of favorite places
Dust stirs in the corners
like a secret heart
trying to beat again.

Wreckage from an old war
I sit like a widow
sifting through it
touching the skeletons
for the last time.
It is spring and
time to let go of them
let the closet billow
with fresh air.

And if it’s true
that the past is
always with us
then let it be
invisible as an angel.
But first I must
bury these old bones.”
― Laura Gilpin

“Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt.
(They change their sky, not their soul, who rush across the sea.)”
― Horace, The Odes of Horace

“Advice for wives circa 1896: The indiscriminate reading of novels is one of the most injurious habits to which a married woman can be subject. Besides the false views of human nature it will impart … it produces an indifference to the performance of domestic duties, and contempt for ordinary realities.”
― Jenny Offill, Dept. of Speculation