Bolero

By Gerald Stern b. 1925 Gerald Stern

So one day when the azalea bush was firing

away and the Japanese maple was roaring I

came into the kitchen full of daylight and

turned on my son’s Sony sliding over the

lacquered floor in my stocking feet for it was

time to rattle the canisters and see what

sugar and barley have come to and how Bolero

sounds after all these years and if I’m loyal

still and when did I have a waist that thin?

And if my style was too nostalgic and where

were you when I was burning alive, nightingale?

Gerald Stern, "Bolero," from Everything is Burning, published by W.W. Norton. Copyright 2005 by Gerald Stern. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Source: Poetry (December 2004).

Bolero

Bolero

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