Poetry by Leslie M. Rupracht

                        Sarah Altendorf


​
​Curtain Call

In Memory of Robin Williams 

When deep in real grief,
I seek healing laughter, pray 
for the salve of humor to restore 
my fractured perspective, return me 
to joy, ease aching toward stability.

When the brilliant comic actor dimmed 
in my existing darkness, the next 
easy smile locked in downturned lips 
as I struggled to understand his tragic finale. 
But did I really struggle for him?

I needed my comedic hero 
always funny, always on, as though 
he existed to light my unique darkness, 
and--fuck him!—when he became real. 
Dead is too real. 

I want to own my connection to his genius, 
while feigning distance to his deepest failings. 
Reality is, his admirers knew more than we admit, 
enough to have offered support. So why didn’t we?
While we were all watching, who really saw him?

Why wasn’t his family’s love enough 
to keep him alive, if fan adoration couldn’t? 
Our society praises—no, worships—celebrity, 
as long as the human side stays hidden. 
We care? We grieve?

Ha! Such hypocrisy. 
How many of us wish our own misery 
garners a fraction of his suicide’s attention. 
At the end of the misunderstood day, 
we want to make it all about us: 
Look at me, help me, save me…





Twelve Steps

In her infinite wisdom Mom would say 
Don’t go upstairs empty-handed. There was always 

something to lug up the spiral staircase from ground 
floor to second: clean clothes, towels or bed linens, 

stashed in a noisy, crinkly plastic grocery bag with 
loops she tied for easy carrying. Or it was a roll of 

toilet paper, bar of soap, tube of toothpaste, box 
of Kleenex, or brother-owned objects Mom tired 

of tripping over. The living room and kitchen floors 
are not dumping grounds, she’d say. I used to think 

she should make the trip herself, exercise would 
do her good. I didn’t know then she used her meager 

rations of energy to get through the day. Laundry’s 
slow pace—sorting, washing, drying and folding just 

a load—was Mom’s workout. Climbing stairs became 
physical therapy, a feat to report in a letter. 

I did 12 steps today, she’d write, illegibly--
a sentence you’d rather not read twice, knowing 

it wasn’t the program for recovery.





My Mother’s Last Portrait
 
The hazel-eyed beauty 
has eyes newly blue-gray, 

their color repainted by 
the same stroke that holds 

her left side captive, robs 
her ability to swallow. She 

squeezes my hand tighter 
as a single tear clings to 

her still-lovely long lashes. 
Mom looks at me, struggles 

to focus on her first-born. 
She strains a slurred 

final reply: 
I-luhhvvv-uuu-tooo.

​

Leslie M. Rupracht is an editor, poet, writer, and visual artist with work in print and online journals (most recently, Gargoyle and As It Ought To Be), anthologies, art exhibits, and a poetry chapbook, Splintered Memories (Main Street Rag Publishing, 2012). Longtime senior associate editor of now-retired Iodine Poetry Journal, Leslie also edited for moonShine review, and was twice editor/designer of North Carolina Poetry Society’s Pinesong. She hosts the monthly reading series, Waterbean Poetry Night at the Mic, which she co-founded in 2015. A 2020 Best of the Net nominee, Leslie is originally from New York, and has called the Charlotte, NC region home since 1997. She and her husband live with their rescued pit bull. IG: @hawkpoetic

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