These two poems by Janet R. Kirchheimer explore romantic relationships, where those involved don’t know the outcome yet continue on…
by: Janet R. Kirchheimer
It Will End Badly She doesn’t know this yet and climbs into the tub, slips down under the bubbles, and closes her eyes for a short while. The water makes her feel free even though her legs are too long to be completely covered. Bubbles will do. She is in a lavender towel now, combing her hair. She notices two new gray hairs, actually they are closer to white, and decides to leave them. She will not pull them out today. Age becomes her, she resolves. Putting on her off-white Dior dress, Stuart Weitzman black pumps, a dusty blue dress coat, she heads out the front door, steps into her silver 328i, adjusts the mirrors, and drives off to meet him.
Assume It’s About Love Violets. Full nights. Open to interpretation. Forgive me. You are a day of slow, steady rain. We will meet under the olive trees. Maybe your wife knows. It will be good, yes, it will be good. Ocean waves move along your body. We have time under the heavens. I will and will and will.
Janet R. Kirchheimer is the author of How to Spot One of Us, poems about the Holocaust and her family (Clal, 2007) and Seduction: Out of Eden co-authored with Jaclyn Piudik (Kelsay, 2022). She is producing AFTER, a cinematic documentary in which poets and actors present poems about the Holocaust and examine the responsibility of art to respond to genocide. She is a Pushcart Prize nominee, and her poems and essays appear in numerous print and online journals, and anthologies including Connecticut Review, Atlanta Review, Mudfish, Limestone, and The Poet’s Quest for God. Her chapter, “At the Water’s Edge: Poetry and the Holocaust,” appears in The Psychoanalytic Textbook of Holocaust Studies (Routledge, 2019). Janet received a Certificate of Appreciation from the 261st Signal Brigade for her poetry reading for a Multi-National Forces Days of Remembrance Holocaust Memorial Service in Baghdad, for which she was also given a Citation from The Council of The City of New York. Most recently, she appeared at a Six-Word Memoir storytelling event at the Tenement Museum in New York City. Janet received a Drisha Institute for Jewish Education Arts Fellowship, is a writing coach and editor, and teaches creative writing and poetry. She is co-winner of the 2022 Lincoln Poetry Contest. Her website is www.janetkworks.com.
