Triangles

by Sandra Kohler


November morning, the sky clear, cool, bright.
Shadows sharpen. So little traffic this morning,
on foot, in cars. Have all the regulars begun to
hibernate already? So many trees have lost their
leaves. The pin oak clings to dry russet remnants,
shrivelled triangles. The beech across the street
has turned amber. Everywhere the shreds of the
past. I start thinking this morning about triangles.
My oldest brother, my father, me. My father didn't
want me spending nights on my brother's boat,
didn't trust brother with me, thought he was             
sexually interested in me. But it was my father
who took me, had me sit on his lap, french-
kissed me. Did he think of me as prey? For my
brother? For himself?  How dispiriting this
history is for me still, now, seventy years on.


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Sandra Kohler’s third collection of poems, Improbable Music (Word Press), appeared in May, 2011. Earlier collections are The Country of Women (Calyx, 1995) and The Ceremonies of Longing (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2003). Her poems have appeared in journals, including The New Republic, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Prairie Schooner, and many others over the past 45 years. In 2018, a poem of hers was chosen to be part of Jenny Holzer’s permanent installation at the new Comcast Technology Center in Philadelphia.