ST. AGNES EVE AT THE DRUG COUNTER
(Jan.20th—on the evening of this day a woman may look in a mirror glass and see her intended…)
-apologies to Keats
Those books of desperate love abridge the day.
With fair-haired dawn she rises. Scoundrel
with his touch ruin girls given time! - They
part when she's at work. Then home, nights rebel
and coups regime once light. Thin soup, vile cough,
that TV show (its name?) and loud as bell
this all alone, are company enough.
Phone and hope might ring, but what to tell? Well?
The year, in dying- staggers- then it drops.
Then New Year. So cold and short the winter’s
days! They’re winks on night. Stout cough still skips, hops
her slope of voice. Pharmacy-she enters,
peers mystic glass divider; cure? - instead-
Burt gives pills-none prescribe no-rest in bed...
Glenn Bagshaw
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/st-agnes-eve-3/
