The Covid 19 pandemic is isolating Alaskan writers. We can no longer attend workshops or public readings. The coffee bars where we met with other writers are closed. To bridge these physical gaps, 49 Writers is providing this on-line forum for Alaskans writing the distance. Today, David McElroy provides a poem and photograph.
Lolita
Ninety-three, and a new friend is worth a pie.
She carries her lemon pie through our complex
confused, not remembering well. All the doors
look the same like new and future friends
and most are closed. Looking down from our balcony,
we see the wandering soul. She shuffles along
bearing like us a gift she can’t give away.
The merengue is lightly browned here and there.
It heaps up like Denali in the Alaska Range
flashing white a hundred miles away
in the early spring sun where the climbers,
too small to see from here, rope together
in this weather window rush for the summit.
David McElroy’s last book of poems is Just Between Us published by University of Alaska Press. He lives in Anchorage.