DC, 1978
Anna Scotti
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest 2020 (view all the winners)
Honorable Mention, Margaret Reid, Traditional Verse
"The past is a foreign country—"
Leslie Poles Hartley
The past is another country; you can barely recall
your brief stay, stacking chipped red bricks
and boards for shelves in a room at the end of the hall
Painting sagging walls white in rooms so full of light
the rusted screens couldn't hold it all,
while down the block dogs barked warnings to the night
And there you are, leaning far out the window to call down
to a boy who smoked and loved to fight
and drive fast, a boy the girls said really got around
He never made it out. He lives only in that lost place
a cramped apartment in your hometown
And in his mother's candles, in her bewildered face
The past is a country of fruit-bright sky and bursting dawns
where you tip-toed home, carelessly laced
sandals slung over one finger, across dew-wet lawns
To find your sister awake, breathless, admiring and shy
your parents safe in their dull bed, radio on,
the front door bolted shut but every window flung wide—
This poem first appeared in Sequestrum.
