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Barbara Riddle

  • Home
  • Contact
  • Novels
  • Published Nonfiction
  • Poetry
  • Memoir
    • PROLOGUE
    • Who Are These People?
    • Shoes and Gloves for the Young Lady
    • First Prize
    • Looking for A Job
    • The Snows of Kilimanjaro, The Floors of Bank Street
    • Semantics
    • Lincoln Continental
    • The Japanese Stallion
    • Art
    • Skunks and Bladders
    • Seahorse Anything
    • Swimming and Shopping
    • Cufflinks, or The Teeth of Gérard Philipe
    • Pool of Kings
    • The Women’s House of Detention
    • The Bathrobe
    • Jewish in My Mind
    • Will The Real Arthur Murray Please Stand Up?
    • Marilyn
    • Wo Bist Du, Fraulein Rheingold?
    • Honor Thy Father
    • September
    • Samples
    • Yurrup
    • Togetherness
    • Surviving the Hotel Marlton
    • My Best Friend Couldn’t Be A Communist
    • Sex and Sinclair Lewis
  • Press
  • About Barbara

Photo by Blondinrikard Fröberg

Red Curtains in February

February 28, 2024

For three years, I’ve gazed at my neighbor’s gloomy window shades.
Noted weekend visits of the dutiful son to his housebound matriarch.
Octobers, I catch whiffs of apples softly rotting on the ground.

Then the signs appeared: FOR SALE and, soon, PRICE REDUCED.
And finally, SALE PENDING.

Something’s always ending.

These days, across the driveway, the sound of children’s voices, or a snowblower,
Or a truck with cold engine warming up.

Something’s always starting.

Today, visible from my bedroom window, suddenly red curtains bloom.
More heart-stopping than spring tulips,
This sign of life: Be Mine!

I take the surge of color for my late, unintended valentine:

New neighbors, I love you too.


Barbara Riddle

February 28, 2024
Millinocket, Maine

Tags: Millinocket, Maine
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