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Margaret Ruth
Porter
I have been writing poetry for over twenty five years with many published credits to my name (well that is a bit of an
exaggeration!). Currently I live in Beirut, Lebanon with my three children, two cats, turtle and a hunting dog named
Bijou who doesn't like to hunt.
I am from a small mining town in SE Arizona which suffered the hardship of decreasing copper prices/mine
closure in the 1970s and transmuted itself into an artist community with a healthy contingent of poets. My work
blends my copper mining past with my Beiruti present.
Cold Radiations
A purse is robbed
and bothered.
All of them turn up empty,
every one you see.
At night in any dream
the perfect death is planned
and mourned. The djinn cries
generated so automatically
when a purse
is rubbed into the lamp,
the warmth of hands
inside all of the last pockets,
faith in all the answers,
the mail order novenas.
Mother's purse was never
like that equipped
with a fold out cup,
Salem menthols
and a pack of tissues.
No genies. She opened it
close to the air cooler
in the dispensary
where Billie shelled
out drugs for diamonds.
All of the patients trying to get out
the pill shop doors and windows
like cattle in the chute.
The cold air drifted up,
under long ago
into the Arizona radiations.
When her purse turned up empty
as they all do,
the origin of novenas was unknown.
copyright © Margaret Ruth Porter
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