Jackie Langetieg, Madison, edits a newsletter for the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services in the Department of Health and Family Services and is a past Board of Directors' president and treasurer of The Writers' Place. In 1991, she received the Joyce W. Webb Memorial Award for poetry from the Madison Area Writers' Association. Her poems have been appeared in Midland Review, Word of Mouth, Straight from the Heart, The Writers' Place 1994 Anthology, and several WFOP Calendars. Next to watching her cat relax, she enjoys looking for poetry, art and photography on the Internet.
Jewels
Inside the red leather memory book
is a creased gray and white picture
the little girl stares fiercely up at me
her blond hair spikes from a dark barrett, a shadow
shows below one eye
she tries to hide a broken bottle from the camera
I know the tire store in the background
is made of green tin
has sooty flat windows
that break from a baseball
that magic jewels are made
from thick pieces of broken glass
shards of alley bottles--beer, coke, orange crush
and that sometimes she was lucky enough
to bleed on the clear pieces
that turned to rubies in the sun
Midland Review, Published May 1993, University of Oklahoma
Copyright © 1993 by Jackie Langetieg
In the Party Room at the Nursing Home
Grandmother sits quietly
a bird at the edge of a round stone bath--
a little frayed, eyes bright with 102 years
of living, but she doesn't know my name
shows no recognition when I lean
down and kiss her feathery cheek
She looks up instead
a chick waiting to see what her parents have brought today
I give her a sweet kalach, filled with the summer
tartness of raspberries
She pops it in her mouth, eyes darting
from my face to my fingers looking for more
then licks her lips and sucks her tongue
smiling around the little black seeds
Her eyes grow dreamy--she rocks a little
I think she remembers raspberries
perhaps walking the woods with a boy
picking hot red morsels, juice dripping
down their chins, air sweet with bees
and purple daisies. I see all her years
come together in the moment of remembering--
savoring the taste of raspberries
Looking Out the Window 1994 Anthology, The Writers' Place
Copyright © 1994 by Jackie Langetieg
Jason at 23
He hums along
days and nights
passing him by
a car on a cross country trip
all the windows
closed
Word of Mouth, Published May 1993, Stevens Point, Wisconsin
Copyright © 1993 by Jackie Langetieg
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