E.J. Miller Laino
The Red Lion Inn

(Stockbridge, Massachusetts)

 

This is what I know today and will know

again tomorrow. A canopy bed

 

two wing-back chairs, our belongings

in a small suitcase tucked away in the closet.

 

In the framed print hanging above the bed,

a young girl has stopped

 

to feed rabbits. I count twelve.

She seems content in the cool green woods.

 

I look to the telephone and realize I have not

called my two small daughters since we arrived

 

last night. Lobster for supper and this morning

fresh blueberries, raspberries, and homemade muffins.

 

If I stay here long enough, will I stop remembering 

them, the way I hardly remember my mother,

 

dead now almost twenty years, unless I hear

September Song, or see white hair

 

brushed smartly back from a forehead, corn-

flower blue eyes. My father died

 

two years ago and already he fades like late day

sun. I can't remember the exact birth date

 

of the daughter I gave up for adoption.

I think it must be like this, prisoners

 

forget their families and memorize the eyes

of guards, what changes outside a window.

 
Found In Volume 27, No. 02
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  • EJ Miller Laino
E.J. Miller Laino
About the Author

E.J. Miller Laino is the author of Girl Hurt (Alice James Books, 1995).  Her honors include a Vermont Studio Center fellowship and the 1996 American Book Award. Her work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including New York Quarterly and Poetry East.