Poems by Mary Londos

Refuse-Woman

I don’t know what happened
How you ended up in that basement
Stone cold, locked
In the dark, and covered
In refuse and other unspeakable things

I don’t know how you slipped
Into the fractured landscape
Of a mind not your own
Stuck at the bottom of an empty well

How did you become so
Invisible, almost?
Though not enough to escape the cruelty
You earnestly wonder if you deserve

Which came first?
The humiliation and then the insanity?
Or was it the other way around?
Did they have reason to lock you away like that?

Or was something in the collective slipped
And twisted? Did you agree?
And you became the collector
Of The Refuse

My darling creature
Thank you for your service
You can pick up your bones and beliefs
They’re yours to do what you want with now

In this long silence,
I grow impatient
But I see you are too weak to walk yet
Hold on with one arm
And we’ll go out together

===

Plus-one

Do you know how to become
more than you are?

You take off your hat
Unzip your chest
Climb down into the grass

Where a black beetle or a butterfly
puts you on notice
that he is your plus-one
for this party

And mathematician that he is
adds to the sum
of all that you were
one simple breath
ago.