New Poetry by Roberta Santlofer

Going Home

A journey back to the self

That you no longer know—

Lifting your sweater to show your appendix scar

Holding up your hair to be sixteen again

Visiting relatives and sleeping long

Being asked about the length of your dreams

Then, sitting around the dinner table with Aunt Emily

And Aunt Adele

Smiling at their rhetorical questions

Mouthing assents to their pauses

And then, as the evening gets late, and drowsy eyes and mouths

Flicker more slowly and not at all

Getting to concentrate on a piece of the firelight

To hold it, to take it back into a part of some life

Of some moment, when words were spoken to mean something

- © Roberta Santlofer 2021

Roberta “Bobby” Santlofer (1943-2020) was a mother of sons, an avid reader, and a poet. A posthumous collection of her poetry is forthcoming. Santlofer’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Gargoyle, Philadelphia Stories, Grey Sparrow Review, and elsewhere. 

[Editor's note: Roberta passed away in June 2020. These poems were sent to me by her son, Mark Danowsky, in his capacity as her literary executor.]