Harper Lee, flaming inside with despair,
shoves open borough apartment window,
hurls five years of scarred pages through ice-air
night, watching them flutter and flip through snow,
fall to rest in frosted holly bushes
and over frozen lawn. She calls Tay, who
yelps, My god! Go get them! Now! She
rushes
down, creaks through New York crust, ignoring flu,
burning in snow, cursing her cowardice.
Gathering those raw leaves, she starts to cry,
struggles to hear drunken Truman’s advice
about loneliness; mutters to dark, Why
do we even try? Feels readers
hate her.
Doesn’t know the Pulitzer awaits her.
Roger Armbrust
July 11, 2013
