Selfie Without Device

by Anita S. Pulier


In the fifties I began to understand temporal limitations
as people, animals and objects sped by and
the dog ran away before we named it.

Grandparents died without explanation,
people moved, friends morphed overnight 
from best to worst.

In the sixties I grew breasts,
braided my hair, put on a peasant skirt and
fell for boys whose names I don’t recall,

struggled through a large anonymous high school 
memorizing all of world history and geometry, 
facts soon lost in a violent sneeze.

Subwayed to college,
marched For and Against, joined the hordes 
of sensitive English Majors weeping at injustice.
 
Claimed a boy whose name I remembered,
had two extraordinary kids and hit the 70s
clutching a law degree and an attitude, 

reminding the judge barking at me 
for wearing sneakers in his courtroom
that in fact, it was not his courtroom.

Greedy decades devoured assumptions.
Against all odds, love, tossed and windswept, survived,
grandchildren appeared waving fists of DNA.

And though the fog of the past is thicker 
and harder to penetrate, I find myself stopping short,
taking note of stunning details I must have missed
never pausing long enough to say “cheese”.


* * * * *

"Selfie Without Device" is from Anita S. Pulier's collection The Butchers Diamond (Finishing Line Press).

In this pandemic year of challenges Anita can share some good news. Her second full length poetry book Toast published by Finishing Line Press came out in February 2021. Anita has published three chapbooks and two full length books and her work has appeared in many journals and anthologies. In her past life she was an attorney. Now she writes poetry and hangs out with poets. To learn more about Anita check her website at: http://psymeet.com/anitaspulier