Carol Kner

All That Evening
August 19, 2020 Kner Carol

All That Evening
 
You woke slowly
from an involuntary nap
on the old Budapest sofa,
and looking at the chair beside mine,
asked softly,
Where did Daddy Go?
I had to remind you
that he has been dead for 30 years
but you seemed unconvinced,
and all that evening,
he hung about somewhere near.
I wondered
if he meant to fetch you
like a parent
who comes to pick up his child
before the birthday party is over
and consents to a piece of cake
while he waits;
if, for him, death is exile
and he seized this chance
for time off,
hovering in the ether
like a name you can’t quite remember.
Unused to easing
roving souls,
we switched off all the lights
and took our aging bodies up to bed.
We cannot change our lives.

Carol Stevens Kner has written articles for the Encyclopedia of World Art, Connaissance des Arts, and the New Book of Knowledge, and served for many years as managing editor and staff writer at PRINT Magazine. At the age of 60, she left that publication to pursue an interest in writing poems. Her work has appeared in Western Humanities Review, The Paris Review, Heliotrope, North American Review, Southwest Review The Dark Horse and other journals. Several of her poems have been set to music by American composer Christopher Berg and performed in concert in New York City. Her chapbook titled “Exposure” was published by Toadlily Press in November 2010. She lives in New York City with her husband of 50 years.