Thank you to everyone who joined us for this session!

Our text was the poem “The Death of Marilyn Monroe” by Sharon Olds, posted below.

Our prompt was: “Write about a time you stood in a doorway.”

More details about this session will be posted soon, so check back!

Participants are warmly encouraged to share what you wrote below (“Leave a Reply”), to keep the conversation going here, bearing in mind that the blog of course is a public space where confidentiality is not assured.

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Please join us for our next session Monday, October 12th at 6pm EDT, with more times listed on our Live Virtual Group Sessions page.

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The Death of Marilyn Monroe  by Sharon Olds

The ambulance men touched her cold
body, lifted it, cold as iron,
onto the stretcher, tried to close the
mouth, closed the eyes, tied the
arms to the sides, moved a caught
strand of hair, as if it mattered,
saw the shape of her breasts, flattened by
gravity, under the sheet,
carried her, as if it were she,
down the steps.

These men were never the same. They went out
afterwards, as they always did,
for a drink or two, but they could not meet
each other’s eyes.

                             Their lives took
a turn--one had nightmares, strange
pains, impotence, depression. One did not
like his work, his wife looked
different, his kids. Even death
seemed different to him–a place where she
would be waiting,

and one found himself standing at night
in the doorway to a room of sleep, listening to a
woman breathing, just an ordinary
woman
breathing.



"Death of Marilyn Monroe," by Sharon Olds 
from The Dead and the Living (Alfred A. Knopf).