In memory of Kristin Reginster, 1948-2000
Winter has passed into spring.
I’ve been away so long, I don’t recognize who I am.
The night fills with purple.
Did we wear that color?
Did we share it?
We knew so little about being twins.
In the dandelion morning
on the jade green lawn,
we would play into summer, even
in the dry heat of noon.
Then dusk and moon rising
beyond Mount Diablo, that wall
of purple. Burgundy long
burned from the chin of the sky,
charcoal, the only color left
until midnight. Venus
falling.
We share the night in ceremony.
Water boiled over a fire.
Orange flames. Tea poured
into black Japanese cups. We sit
in lawn chairs, our jacket collars
turned up. No voices. No
footsteps. Maybe a possum,
that’s all. Side by side
we lean forward stretching our arms
over the fire. Just warming our cheeks,
our faces.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 28, Issue 1.
Hilda Weiss is the co-founder and curator for www.Poetry.LA, a website that features videos of poets and poetry venues in Southern California. She has been published in journals such as Rattle, Tinderbox, Bicoastal Review, Cultural Daily, Poet Lore, Salamander, and Spillway, as well as in anthologies such as Wide Awake: Poets of Los Angeles. In 2023, her manuscript, Seemingly Normal, was a finalist in the National Federation of State Poetry Societies competition. She lives in Santa Monica, where she grows her own vegetables in a garden full of native California plants.
See all items about Hilda Weiss
