LeClanché Durand

Flight

As he drives away
The car dipping with his cargo
His mouth, a bowtie knotted
Askew with grief and remorse,

She flees her petrified husk
Immured alongside the
Driveway's naked maples
Davening in the January air.

She flees, as does he,
The still standing, mute
Emblem of the woman
Hollowed out by shock.


Subtext

Summer's ripe
Sun-gold plump
Tomatoes
Captured
In the freezer
Twelve waiting
Years

She thaws them
Too late now to eat
Their slimy meat
Stopping up the drain
Coagulating the years
Of anticipated relish
In a cold season

Around the ice-bound
Compost heap, open to the sky,
She flings the bloody fruit,
Scentless threads, flaming
Broken membrane—
Scat on virgin
Snow


Subway Madonna

There--in mid-stride,
Longing
Shakes her out by the neck scruff
Sudden
As sunlight after a matinée.

His head--wet tree bark smell
Hollows itself upon her breast
As rightly as stones in earth.

Surfing out a sigh smile,
She slides the token in its slot,
And rolls her pelvis through the stile.


About the Author

LeClanché Durand has been a professional actress for over 40 years: Broadway, off-B'way, regional theaters, and film. She is a playwright and Drama Therapist, and her work is published by Dramatic Publishing Company and the international Arts in Psychotherapy Journal. She is the author of her one-woman show, Hysterics, which she has performed extensively at regional theaters, psychology conferences, and arts institutes. She gives workshops in the creation of autobiographical theater, and has taught acting at NYU. Writing poetry is her refuge and delight.

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