This Linda Pastan Poem Returned to Me Recently

This poem smiled slyly at me when I was feeling so ill recently.

There are a few Pastan poems that never left me once I read them.

My favorite is the one near the very end of A.M./P.M. whose title eludes me right now--the one about the sempiternally posed question in old skool ethics classes about which you would save in the burning Louvre: the iconic painting or the old lady standing next to it?

Her response poem to that is so perfect.

Anyway, here's another Pastan poem that returns to roost on my arm periodically.


     after minor surgery

this is the dress rehearsal
when the body
like a constant lover
flirts for the first time
with faithlessness

when the body
like a passenger on a long journey
hears the conductor call out
the name
of the first stop

when the body
in all its fear and cunning
makes promises to me
it knows
it cannot keep