Amy Kitchener's Angels Without Wings Foundation
Presents the 2008 Massachusetts Senior Poet Laureate

Marian Kaplun Shapiro

MARIAN KAPLUN SHAPIRO, 69, Lexington, Massachusetts, a Jewish Quaker, was born in a housing project in The Bronx. She is now a psychologist and author of many plays, articles, books and poems. Marian and her physicist husband have two children and five grandkids. She was born in July.

LA TOURISTE SANS SOUCI


Nightmares do not follow me today.

My pocketbook has not been stolen, nor
is it lost. Somehow it's safely stowed,
and I can stride, or even skip, my way
down la petite Rue D'Amelie, swinging
my arms. O dear freedom! O chère liberté!
Elevators stay their course, clean
bathrooms appear as needed, and beaucoup
gendarmes smile at me and tip their caps.
I've lost my carte and phrasebook, c'est vrai,
but strangers speak English, falling into step,
taking my arm, pointing out their favorite
sights. My high school French buys me une pomme
with some loose coins that show up in my pocket.
De l'eau? I am directed to a nearby
water cooler.

Now it's time to meet my lover à
l'Hotel Les Jardins d'Eiffel. He
has not forgotten. He has not died.
He is waiting for me, out front
on the hotel steps, waving, waving
and holding out his arms. I don't need flowers.
I don't need chocolate, I don't need coffee,
or even sunlight in my world. Je n'ai pas
besoin des fleurs. Je n'ai pas besoin
du chocolate. Je n'ai pas besoin
le café, ou même la lumière
du soleil dans mon monde.

Marian Kaplun Shapiro
Lexington Massachusetts