The Year Poem By Janet Bowdan
When you did not come for dinner, I ate leftovers for days. When you missed dessert, I finished all the
strawberries. When you did not notice me, I walked four miles uphill past you and into Florence and five
miles the other way. When you did not like my dress, I wore it with gray silk shoes instead of gold ones.
When you did not see my car had sunk into a snowdrift at the turn of your driveway, I took the shovel off
your porch and dug myself out. When you stopped writing, I wrote. When you sent back my poems, I
made them into earrings and wore them to work. When you refused to appear at the reunion, I went to
the dentist who showed me X-rays of my teeth. When you did not tell, me you would be in town, I met you,
on Main Street on the way to the library. While you had dinner with me, I walked past the window and
looked in. You were not there.Janet Bowdan
first published in Denver Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 4, Winter 1998