Sunday, December 7, 2025

Circles by Ruth Holzer

Even among the expats
you were treated as second-class,
not a member of the inner circle,
never invited to those famous parties
with actors, directors and couturiers.
Excluded from their escapades
but subjected to their tales.

No matter how it had been spent,
sprinkled with what small random pleasures,
when the day ended
you had to return by yourself
to the arched doorway
that bore a lion’s head biting an iron ring
and spend the night
picturing the people you loved
loving each other instead.



Ruth Holzer is the author of ten chapbooks, most recently, On the Way to Man in Moon Passage (dancing girl press). Her poems have appeared in Blue Unicorn, California Quarterly, Freshwater, POEM, Slant, Thema and elsewhere. She is a multiple Pushcart and Best of the Net nominee.

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