Laura Van Prooyen

Laura Van Prooyen
Laura Van Prooyen's first collection of poetry, Inkblot and Altar, was published by Pecan Grove Press in 2006. Recent work is forthcoming or appears in 32 Poems, Boston Review, The Greensboro Review, and Sou'wester, among others. A graduate of the M.F.A. Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, Van Prooyen lives with her family in Illinois where she writes and teaches at Dominican University.

Bloom

It's true, I thought it was funny to ride my bike
in front of the house where the man
would open the curtains, naked.

But, today might be the day
I stop missing my childhood.

This morning, the tiger lilies opened
their throats, the clematis
grown tall as a fifth-grade girl.

I braid my daughter's hair
and remind her not to take the shortcut
through the Laundromat or the alley.  

I know the world can be broken,
yet beautiful. I want to believe loneliness

is not menacing, but can be a window
from which I watch her walk away.