Poetics Presents

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Poetics Presents

Pat Hegnauer

Pat Hegnauer has been an acting teacher, producer, actress and director. At present, she is a playwright and poet. Her poems have been published in The Crone's Nest, Scrivener's Pen, Utmost Christian Writers, Moondance, Saucy Vox, the Adagio Quarterly Review, The Newport Review, Wicked Alice, and Rhode Island Roads Magazine. Her first chapbook, A Few Uncompromised Letters, was published by the Premier Poets Chapbook series.

Scarlet Bound Legacy

I unpacked promises
from cardboard coffins,
books, mostly poetry,
and bone china passed
down from white-gloved
hands that served tea
in mahogany parlors.

Her gold monogram,
translucent as a scallop,
glowed luminous as her
milky eyes till the last day.

After the funeral I exhumed
bundled letters lashed
delicately in blue ribbons,
buried in a closet fifty years
before. Fragments,
forbidden love crumbling
like a withered corsage.

Evidence of a Victorian
heart hidden in a faded
legacy of letters, and
a portrait smiling gravely
at me sitting on their bed,
sipping a cup of her tea,
reading exquisite poetry;

Browning bound in scarlet
leather inscribed by a lover.

Copyright Š2004 by Pat Hegnauer