Poem by Linda Lerner

Illustration by James Conant



Returning to Boston a Second Time

I swear I’ve never been back
told you then and I’m telling you now...
you too said never...
been five years and
we’d found our way back
but not THERE...
those narrow brick streets
I saw from a trolley yesterday
in Beacon Hill like the one
you photographed me on
standing beneath a ‘Do Not Enter Sign’
warned of what choice
had already taken from us before your death...
as for where I’ve been
the city’s name...call it coincidence
a lie of geography