Rooftop Poetry Club - Irene Sipos

Irene Sipos

Bio:
Irene Sipos is a native Buffalonian who completed her graduate work at the State University of New York at Buffalo under Robert Creeley and Leslie Fiedler. Irene has taught Composition at Buffalo State College since 1999 where she is currently a full time lecturer in the College Writing Program. Her work has appeared numerous times in the Buffalo News and in several other publications including Artvoice, Lilth Magazine, The Comstock Review and Buffalo Poets Against War. She believes there is a similarity in the joy of preparing a meal and writing a poem.

Poems:

asylum

Sophia, forehead cooled
against the pane,
takes comfort in her view.
In the middle of a city,
busy with itself,
a meadow opens
many stories below.
Three fat sheep and one
shy lamb graze under a November
sky. A low wooden structure
stands to one side, its front
door propped open to let in
late fall sun. Two women sit
on pine ladder-backs.
One holds a pale, linen pillowcase,
Sweet Dreams stitched in rose
and violet thread. The other,
eyes closed, lets the embroidery hoop,
the taut cotton, the thin curved
needle lie in the folds of her skirt.
What Richardson envisioned, the architectural guide tells us, was the sense of village.
He designed this building, with its long curving lines, as an embrace.
Our sneakers are buried
in tangles of what was once
a kitchen herb garden.
Carrots, onions and beans
mingling in black iron
pots, infused with lemon thyme.
Turning from the window,
as the five o'clock sun begins
to fade, Sophia pulls her
shawl close and wonders
if supper is soup.