Laura Foley

Laura Foley is a bi/queer poet, author of nine poetry collections. She has won a Narrative Magazine Poetry Prize, Common Good Books Poetry Prize, Poetry Box Editor’s Choice Chapbook Award, Bisexual Book Award, Atlanta Review’s Grand Prize and others. Her work has been widely published in such journals as Alaska Quarterly, Valparaiso Poetry Review, American Life in Poetry, and in numerous anthologies such as How to Love the World and Poetry of Presence.

I Run Into My Ex-Therapist, Ex-Lover Artist From Whom I Bought Lots of Paintings

Visiting a friend at an
assisted living facility,
there she is, the therapist
I haven’t seen in years,
dropped with me into a movie,
the two of us alone
in a clean carpeted hallway,
but she’s in an electric wheelchair,
partially paralyzed, must be a resident—
no winter coat—I bend to say
hello and chat and feel proud
I don’t hold any grudge,
but then her eyes flare into mine,
like the old days,
like wires sparking my soul,
standing empty-handed in
the long corridor’s bardo,
in my puffy winter coat, my
wild heart whipping in wind
like a snapped power line.
I stride away—I’ll be in touch!—
practically running down the hall,
escaping the elevator’s
sliding electric doors,
plunging into the cold starry night,
giddy with freedom.