richard fein

 

 

A BRIEF REUNION

Listed in the alumni Who's Who as address unknown,
and after having thrown away every reunion party invitation,
she finally had a reunion in the emergency room──
had slit her wrists, was bleeding badly.
Upon recognizing her lost sorority sister,
the doctor's bloodshot eyes widened to gentleness.
She dropped her clinically sterile mask.
But her patient's eyes narrowed, her face scowled,
"you never knew me. I never existed."
Then she who wished she never was
turned away from the star of the alumni Who's Who.
Nevertheless, the doctor stitched together the gaping wound,
stitches skillfully sewn,
but a deep chasm remained under the nearly lethal gashes.
The pager summoned the alumna away,
for the doctor had so many others to cure.
But she promised she'd be back
to close the hospital bed curtains around them both
and talk though the night as they did long ago.
Then that patient, that bleeding sister, lay in bed
and in her wounded wrists felt the first healing itch.

 

Richard Fein was a finalist in The 2004 New York Center for Book Arts Chapbook Competition. A Chapbook of his poems was published by Parallel Press, University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has been published in many web and print journals such as Cordite, Cortland Review, Reed, Southern Review, Roanoke Review, Birmingham Poetry Review, Mississippi Review, Paris/atlantic, Canadian Dimension, Black Swan Review, Exquisite Corpse, Foliate Oak, Morpo Review, Ken*Again, Oregon East, Southern Humanities Review, Morpo, Skyline, Touchstone, Windsor Review, Maverick, Parnassus Literary Review, Small Pond, Kansas Quarterly, Blue Unicorn, Exquisite Corpse, Terrain Aroostook Review, Compass Rose, Whiskey Island Review, Oregon East, Bad Penny Review, Constellations, and many, many others.

 

 

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