Lea Galanter

Annunciation
            —After The Annunciation by Maurice Denis
 
What I want to know is
why an angel stands in your doorway
bowing down in white satin
hands aloft in your sparse, spare room
 
The smell of gardenias beyond the garden gate
comes through the window on beams of sunlight
too bright for heavenly beings
 
This angel appears, you tell me,
with an important message hidden in her wings
that only you can hear
 
I don’t believe you
the lone book open on your desk
is your sole access to knowledge
 


On Approaching 62
 
She will never find that
wealthy man to take care of her
so she can spend her life as an artist
discovering the depths of the sea
like Jack Cousteau
confessing despair and
lack of perfection to her demons
and soaking up enlightenment from her angels
 
She lives with choices made long ago
gives up the dream
sequesters herself in a blue house
with silent cats
instead of riding elephants in the circus
 
It's not the catastrophe it was at 42
she can buy that leather jacket
go to the Himalayas
pick fall leaves
and sit on the roof eating cupcakes
 
Old age is not for the useless
it's for those with the crayons
to build a bridge
to the next world.



Lea Galanter is a Seattle-area editor and writer with a background in history and theater. After writing plays for many years, she stumbled into the world of poetry and has never looked back. Her poetry has been published by Really System, River and South, Panoply, LitFuse, and appears in several anthologies. She ventures regularly into the spaces between words seeking secret messages.