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Helen’s Salt and Pepper Shaker Collection
Marjorie Power

The display case filled
the year her son finished school
but each pair of shakers
stays perky and cute.

Her terrier sighs
on a folded blanket
near the wall with the TV.

Onscreen, a man leaves his wife
for his flame, whose husband
might die in this time slot
tomorrow or Thursday.

The story persists till Helen’s hairdo
comes back into style.
She’s a hottie! Always was.

—
Marjorie Power’s newest poetry collection is Sufficient Emptiness (Deerbrook Editions, 2021). A chapbook, Refuses to Suffocate, appeared in 2019 from Blue Lyra Press. Southern Poetry Review, Main Street Rag, Commonweal, Evening Street Review, and Ginosko have taken her work recently. She lives with her husband and near grandchildren in Rochester, NY, after many years in various western states.

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