When I text you I am sad and you text back you understand… you don’t. When I text you that melancholy keeps me in my room and you text back you understand… you don’t. But— when I quoted four lines I found one sleepless night, twelve words pressed like leaves inside a magazine, when I texted you that I am as lonely as the only car in a bowling alley parking lot you called.
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Note: Lines in italic are from “The Queen of American Gothic” by Richard Peabody
Bio
Jane Schapiro
Jane Schapiro is the author of three volumes of poetry, Warbler (Kelsay Books, 2020 Nautilus Award), Let The Wind Push Us Across (Antrim House 2017), Tapping This Stone (Washington Writers’ Publishing House Award, 1995) and the nonfiction book Inside a Class Action: The Holocaust and the Swiss Banks (University of Wisconsin, 2003). Mrs. Cave’s House won the 2012 Sow’s Ear Poetry Chapbook competition. Her work has appeared in numerous journals including Ars-Medica, The Gettysburg Review, Poetry East, and Prairie Schooner. Schapiro lives in Fairfax, Virginia and volunteers at Food For Others. Her website is www.janeschapiro.com. [provided for the Arc Award of Awesomeness in August 2023]