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Laura Celise Lippman
DISTURBANCES IN THE FIELD
low-lying C-17s come too close, shivving my peace
at the beach, colossi thundering over tumbling wavelets
that advance with the tide, bringing war’s messy mesoglea
to my doorstep, me daydreaming of mountain meadows
where lupines bloom, their hidden alkaloids
waiting to poison meandering herds.
memories intrude, ex-wives brandishing signs outside
office windows, targeting our in-house cheat,
errant partner, and alimony dodger, vintage Jag
collector and illicit income generator writing
prescriptions for Oxycontin, trying to keep wives,
mistresses, and children fed, clothed, and luxuriated,
leaving a trail of addition, ignominy, vengeance,
and marital conflagration at our clinic door.
About the writer:
Laura Celise Lippman’s work has appeared in Avatar Review, Brief Wilderness, The Broken Plate, Chained Muse, Crack the Spine, Crosswinds, El Portal, Evening Street Review, Flights, Glassworks Magazine, and others. She is a co-author of the book Writing While Masked, Reflections of 2020 and Beyond. She attended Bryn Mawr College and received her M.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania. She practiced medicine and raised two children in the Pacific Northwest. Since retirement, she takes poetry courses and enjoys the outdoors and sharing her wonder at the natural world.
Image: Umzug by Arthur Segal (1875-1944). Oil on canvas. 70 x 89.5 cm. Circa 1921. Public domain.
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