Vivi Hlavsa

Newsworthy

Caught up in a current
event, the flying newspaper
briefly pressed itself
against the car windshield,
canvassed the panicked face,
then sank to the street,
reclining, a Henry Moore,
(full of suggestive holes)
before folding in half,
cardiovasculars done.


The Suicide

Dropping off his cat for my care,
my friend Al, the psychologist,
told me my son would never learn
to ride a horse, that he tended toward
hysteria, and that, for himself,
psychotherapy couldn't work
because he was too smart; he knew
what the therapist would say before
it was said. What he didn't
tell me--what I didn't discover
for months--was that he was planning
suicide. I should have known what
with his watery, wide blue eyes,
his flushed cheeks, his grief-spreading
                                       mouth.


The Race for the Spoils

Walking fast, I am passed
by a brown and black Wooly Bear
Caterpillar, rippling back
along the road the other way,
working his legs. At my firm step,
he barely nods, barely bothers
to downshift. He's busy about
his caterpillar business
(on Winter Alert), the way I must
be about mine, walking fast now,
faster than yesterday, trying
hard to outrun some worms.


About the Author

Virginia (ViVi) Hlavsa taught English at Queens College and tutored young adults with learning disabilities. She has written scholarly articles and a book, Faulkner and the Thoroughly Modern Novel, and several books of poetry, Re-Versing: Memoire of the Non-Agenarian, Waking October Leaves and Squinnied for a Sign. As president of the Kingston AAUW (American Association for University Women), ViVi led book groups, movie discussions, trips to museums, and instituted “One Book, One Community” with area colleges and libraries. In 2011, ViVi started SSIP (Seniors Serving in Place), now with five branches (see info.SSIP), for which she won New York State’s “Senior of the Year” in 2017. Several new books of poems are planned.


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