Marjorie Howard Johnson: Two Poems

Miss Anderson’s Doorbells

Miss Anderson taught us Latin:

Silky white hair in a sidelift French twist.

She might have been a Calvinist.

Sober with dignity, crispspoken, cool.

Her school dress was dark blue rustling crepe,

And gold-rimmed pearl buttons strode down

Over her overhung robust bosom,

Begging to be rung.

                         Marjorie Howard Johnson

Daughters Don’t Cry

Daughters don’t cry when their fathers die,

There is not time.

There’s Mom, for one,

She needs a face

To hang her pale questions on.

There’s the undertaker to put in his place,

And the minister, who will eulogize

Without ever having met him Dad.

No time to cry,

Because of all the calls to make:

There’s the editor of the obit page,

The organist, and the guy who plays taps;

There are caterers and florists,

And there’s Mom again, distraught,

And baseball keepsakes to allot;

There’s the office steno pool,

The Friday afterwork barstool

With the old drinking buddies;

A few surviving schoolmates,

There’s all those Aunts and Uncles and

All those unidentifiable small cousins.

No time for a daughter to recall

His one stride to her three skips

As hand in hand and with parallel feet

They once made their way together down the street.

Marjorie Howard Johnson