Doris Lessing at Eighty-Seven
Jan Bowman
She sits on the stoop
legs spread akimbo
hand on furrowed forehead
an old woman from shawl
to skirt, her thin wispy strands
of hair caught up at her neck
Her pose says, Now what have I gone
and done? Photographers pounce on
her stupefaction move into her face
deny her space to register the Nobel—
she who once was told she’d never win it—
Harold Bloom types, too blinded
by their own political correctness
too deaf to notice that she’d shelved
feminism, communism, and p.c.ism itself
cantankerous old fool, bloody independent
bitch, hiking up her skirt with an old leather
belt and swinging down the walk past
yet another construction site just to count
the whistles.
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