Nostalgias

Beatriz Dujovne


Gaslights do their luring in the dark. 
Orange auras, veiled faces, 
widows’ silhouettes in serpentine 
procession along the riverfront.

The glow carves nostalgia 
from the foliage. Horse-drawn 
carriages, women in corsets, 
curvaceous dresses, 
hair piled into crowns.
Prague? London? 
Buenos Aires perhaps.

His absence and I sit on a bench 
under yellow reflections broken by 
swaying leaves, embracing and 
sharing this immense grief,
saying goodbye again. 

A gentle rain soaks us
in dreamy, romantic,
exquisitely brief fog.


* * * * *

Beatriz Dujovne is a licensed psychologist with a private psychotherapy practice. She is the author of In Strangers’ Arms: The Magic of the Tango (McFarland, 2011) and Don’t Be Sad After I’m Gone (McFarland, forthcoming) and has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed psychoanalytic journals. Her poems have recently appeared in January Review, Front Porch Review, Poetica Review, and Amethyst Review.