During the month of April 2020, Arlington Poet Laureate Emerita Katherine E. Young is posting poems from the forthcoming anthology Written in Arlington, which showcases the poets and poems of Arlington, Virginia.
Ode to a Pink House
by Jacqueline Jules
I see you two blocks away,
from George Mason Drive.
Naked in all your pink glory
beside more demure
brown and blue structures.
You remind me of so many choices
I abandoned in the paint store,
afraid of annoyed neighbors
and staring traffic.
Maybe it’s time for me
to stand on the corner,
cheerfully pink like you—
a two-story monument
with neon green shutters,
designed to disdain
safe decisions
at the intersections of life.
Jacqueline Jules is the author of three chapbooks, Field Trip to the Museum, Stronger Than Cleopatra, and Itzhak Perlman’s Broken String, winner of the 2016 Helen Kay Chapbook Prize from Evening Street Press. Her work has appeared in over one hundred publications, including Poetica, Beltway Poetry News, Gargoyle, Innisfree Poetry Journal, Potomac Review, Little Patuxent Review, and Hospital Drive. She lives in Arlington. “Ode to a Pink House” was first published in Spank the Carp. Visit www.jacquelinejules.com.
Written in Arlington / Spoken in Arlington is a print and digital collection of the poets and poems of Arlington, VA, edited by Katherine E. Young and published by Paycock Press (forthcoming, fall 2020). It is supported in part by Arlington County through the Arlington Cultural Affairs division of Arlington Economic Development and the Arlington Commission for the Arts. For more information, visit Arlington Arts.
Image: After the Rain mixed media/collage on canvas by Anya Getter (fragment)
