Poet Of Working Women Poem by Stephen Saul

i stood alone
at her grave
a simple flat marker
on a mound of earth
the few
who still
remembered her
slowly trickled away
she had lived to ninety
and nursed the wounded
of france
in two world wars
til she lost
her marbles
at bastogne
she told me once
that she had found
a few of them
but the rest
were better left missing
overlooking the
staten island ferry
she'd written
some six hundred poems
but only a dozen
had survived
mostly on the lips
of the seamstresses
and cleaning ladies
of the burroughs
she was always
proud of that
i recited one
while the shadow
of evening
moved slowly
across the simple
flat marker
that only bore
her name
i left
POET OF WORKING WOMEN
scribbled
in the soft
mound of earth