By: Heather Long
State: California
Country: USA
"... in the Details"
We're not ready; the smell
cloying, like bear meat we dragged,
gagging, from freezer to yard
weeks after a power failure. Remember
that summer? You were twelve, tall,
stumbled with confusion; pubescent
hands divining God in every ocean
stone and California redwood.
We work together now - turn her body,
straighten her clawed fingers, remove
oxygen tubes, suspended drug pump,
flip switches to silence, consider
her pristine skin. Blue butterfly clips
we leave for the doctor whose knock
slips, seamless, into our deliberateness.
He pronounces her: rare and generous
gift to medical science.
Later the room is all lemons and Lysol;
a blue hyacinth behind where I sit
brings back the taste, the heat
of that summer. I see you embrace
concepts, puzzles without answers.
The coffee is bitter; my tongue curls
around a new equation -- together
has become one. You sleep
at the edge of the bed, brow
furrowed, cling to acceptance.
When you say, "Mom", I reach
for your hand.
Copyright © Heather Long 2000
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Comments: How powerful and evocative---so full of feeling it hurts!
Thank you---
Name: Camilla Flintermann
EMail: flintepc@muohio.edu
Comments: Magnificent.
Name: RhymeMaster
EMail: rhymer01@thewritersnook.com
Comments: Wow...that was truly a masterful rendering. I am in awe.
Name: Ed Allen
EMail: eallen553@aol.com
Comments: SWEET....even to an untraind poet, it is very moving
Name: Chris Winspear
EMail: cirax@start.com.au
Comments: Thank you for this tender, insightful poem of life and death. :)
Name: Ursula
EMail: UrsulaTG@aol.com
Comments: Yes Heather, you've been where I've been woman...it just doesn't go away does it. God Bless.
Name: Mike Subritzky
EMail: kusza@ihug.co.nz
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