Good Kindling ~ Poems by Virginia Lee Sprague

Between Eternity & Opium, Something Reeks

As I flip through old Vanity Fairs,

Sniffing out perfume samples, I have a reality accident,

My eye catches on a caption about Tibetan nuns,

Forced to copulate in public squares, soldiers laughing,

As a back drop of exquisite beauty,

Breathed in their shame.

In the year of my birth, Mao’s campaign of horrors,

Began to visit the Himalayas, a land of devotion,

The year I graduated from high school, 1975,

“Ground Zero” had begun in Cambodia,

As Pol Pot’s Kamer Rouge began to exterminate,

Doctors, teachers and anyone who wore glasses.

The following year I got a new optical prescription,

For Photo-Gray lenses,

In 1976, they were all the rage,

With my ninety pound frame, bare feet and frayed hair,

My new specs made me look like a junkie,

I was pleased with this effect,

It’s amazing what the proper amount of emaciation,

Can do for one’s image.

August 1996