Joanne DeSimone Reynolds’ chapbook Comes a Blossom will be published by Main Street Rag in January 2014. A graduate of Boston University, she has had poems published in Salamander, Ibbetson Street Press, Wilderness House Literary Review and other literary journals. She is a member of the Concord Poetry Center and writes reviews for Boston Area Small Press. The mother of two grown children, she lives on the south shore of Boston with her husband.

 An Arc

From the edge of your bed I watch the dog.

Poor poodle, off his food, wearing out a circuit.

You’ve brought out the blue suitcase–

great gaping mouth.

Paris, Hong Kong or Timbuktu, Mother?

The postcard always comes too late.

You pack your silks of pastel hues

between white tissue paper –

flavorless parfait

the dog leaps into.

You command him under the bedside table.

Nothing now but a furred coil.

Only the eye-glint moves.

You prop open the side pockets –

make a final arc with your sling-back shoes.

Room enough, the click-latch locks it.

The gleam of your pillbox hat from behind.

The swing of you –

one hand free.

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