Red Lion Inn, The

This is what I know today and will know

again tomorrow. A canopy bed

two wing-back chairs, our belongings

in a small suitcase tucked away in the closet.

In the framed print hanging above the bed,

a young girl has stopped

to feed rabbits. I count twelve.

She seems content in the cool green woods.

I look to the the telephone and realize I have not

called my two small daughters since we arrived

last night. Lobster for supper and this morning

fresh blueberries, raspberries, homemade muffins.

If I stay here long enough, will I stop remembering

them, the way I hardly remember my mother,

dead now almost twenty years, unless I hear

September Song, or see white hair

brushed smartly back from a forehead, corn

flower blue eyes. My father died

two years ago and already he fades like late day

sun. I can't remember the exact birth date

of the daughter I gave up for adoption.

I think it must be like this, prisoners

forget their families and memorize the eyes

of guards, what changes outside a window.

E. J. Miller Laino's first book of poetry, GiN Hurt (Alice James Press) won a 1996 American Book Award. She is presently co-editing In My Life: Encounters with the BeatleS, a literary anthology of poetry and prose on the subject of the Beatles which will be published by Fromm International, spring, 1998. She lives in Key West, Florida with her husband and two daughters.

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