“Traditional” by Jennifer Buda

Weak coffee, or a smudge

left on a white shirt

the color of my new typewriter

is flax, or boringly brown

but it reminds me

of the sliding door

in my grandparents’ home

to an office no longer used

where old toys, old photos, and old ideas

were hidden from the family room

and will be left, after

For now, it's somewhere

for a child to explore

or for my grandfather

without the noise

from the television

or his lovely wife

he’s able to sit down,

get to business

and have a good cry

Jennifer Buda is a poet living in Michigan whose work examines intimate moments with restrained observation. Her writing has recently appeared in Poetic Reveries, the East Lansing Art Festival Poetry Journal (10th and 11th editions), Half and One Magazine, and is forthcoming in poetry anthologies from Folly, Beyond Words Magazine, and The National Poetry Centre.