Waiting For A Footstep Poem by gershon hepner

Waiting for a footstep that will never come,
we sit immobile round the holiest of holies,
distracted by our mindgames with a zero sum,
and though we do not have a ball, we act like goalies,
attempting to prevent competitors from scoring
the sort of goals that in the past we often scored,
and act defensively when we’re attacked, deploring
the absence of the images we once adored.


(5/3/07/Inspired by a review of Hermione Lee’s biography of Edith Wharton by Claire Messud in the NYT Book Review, April 29,2007 (“Portrait of a Lady”))