Virginia Woolf’s Walking Cane at the New York Public Library, by Joanne Rocky Delaplaine

British writer Virginia Woolf's cane. 1930s?

Virginia Woolf’s Walking Cane at the New York Public Library
 
             I should be in Hyde Park Gate, or Monk’s House, or St. Ives,
or with Vanessa’s grandchildren, who remember us, gladly, the strolls
we took, there was rhythm in your long stride, we made our own waves

            —one two three, one two three, our tips clicking down the stairs
of your Bloomsbury flat. On our final walk, you raced me to the river Ouse,
your pockets bulging with rocks. I was all that floated

          that day. Someone found me, returned me to Leonard, he kept me
until he couldn’t, then, like you, set me free. But here I am, in a glass case,
the top half of a question mark, still bearing your weight.

Joanne Rocky Delaplaine

Joanne Rocky Delaplaine’s first full-length poetry book The Local World, will be published in 2019.  Her poems have appeared or will be forthcoming in Poet Lore, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, Innisfree Poetry Journal, International Literary Quarterly, The Northern Virginia Review, Potomac Review, Free State Review, Tinderbox, and elsewhere. Her poems have won Best of the Net (2015) and first place in the Bethesda Literary Festival Poetry Contest, 2014. She co-directs the Café Muse poetry-reading series in Chevy Chase, Maryland, and teaches Iyengar yoga with a specialty in back care.