Budejovicka/Beth Kephart Poem

Budejovicka

It was the way the dust hung, globed and white,

and how every room was square and thumbtacked green

with ivy.  She’d left three slips

drying on the line outside, and a peach on the table,

and the old bear of her winter coat in the closet because it was still,

in some ways, an animal, and, besides, you were only

passing through and it was summer.

You bought a heel of bread at the Metro stop and hung

a paper goose from a hook in the ceiling and when you tell

the story (you tell the story)

the puppets are alive because of you.