Maura Stanton

Inauguration Day
June 24, 2021 Stanton Maura

INAUGURATION DAY

 

Yes, like thousands of joyful poets today
I’m in my study to write the first poem
of a new era, full of hope but nervous.
This snapshot of my Mom in a party hat
thumbtacked to a cork board on the wall
is a good place to recover my happiness.
It’s next to a ticket for a boat to Hautecombe,
a monastery in France on du Lac du Bourget
where I heard a nightingale in the woods.
Once my sisters sent me a lei from Hawaii
and here’s the bright card from Hawaiian Tropical Flowers.
This baby in a pink dress is my niece
almost grown up now, and this green postcard
shows Hemingway’s house in Key West
where I watched six toed cats climb palms.
And speaking of cats, here’s a bookmark
from the Grolier Book Shop in Cambridge
with three cats inside the large Grolier O
found in a book of poems by Tom Lux,
and under it, a strip of U.S. postage stamps,
Brooks, Hayden, Bishop, Plath and Roethke,
labeled FOREVER in the top left corner.

Maura Stanton has written six books of poetry, the first of which, Snow on Snow, won the Yale Younger Poets Prize. Her latest book is Immortal Sofa. Her work has appeared in a number of publications including The Best American PoetryPloughshares, TriQuarterly, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The Chicago Review, among others.