Nina Avedon

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In Search of Lost Timepiece

Should I have buried
you with it?
Slipped it into the pocket
of the suit from Barneys
I married you in?

I can’t remember
why we hid it in the first place
such a safe space
we joked
would we ever find it again?

In the study I found
the transponder
next to the keys for the Acura
donated to GBH,
or was it BUR?

I also found your stash
of weed with some Rizzla?
rolling papers (which fyi
you’d no longer
need to conceal)

but not those two hits of Ecstasy
we scored off that young bartender
at Lucy’s who kept going on about great sex
what was his name?
Too bad we forgot

we had them
I looked in the bedroom closet
where I found your ties
except for the, would you call it paisley?, one
I gave to Peter which he wore

when we all met for dinner
last September at La Voile
to mark —has it really been—
five years?
since you’ve been gone.

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The Caretakers

I

One stakes claim to my core
kneading the knots on my neck,
my spine    one sticks pins in my limbs
then covers my toes
with a shimmery blankey
I bare my bones to another’s
expert eyes —take her advice
to don an SPF’d bonnet

II

My stepmother beckons me
to their bedroom
It’s his birthday but no cake
has been baked    my father, now one hundred
and two, doesn’t know I am there

I feel myself blush
while she changes his diaper
cooing her way through the task
I turn away
but her talk brings me back— 
This is love she barks

III

Are they taking or giving?
my young patient asks
pointing to the print in the hall
I peer at Flowers of Peace,
the Picasso I forgot
was hanging on the wall
I extend an arm toward my office,
motion—take a seat
They’re sharing I offer
with a smile  —  and we’re off

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Nina Avedon                             

Nina Avedon is a psychoanalyst and couples therapist who lives and practices in Brookline, Massachusetts though her dreams still reside in the New York City of her childhood.  After years of reading poems, she started to write some of her own.  Her poem, What’s Missing, can be found in the Spring 2017 issue of The Avalon Literary Review.  A shorter version of the poem was published in Oberon Poetry Magazine’s 2016 issue.