Poems

Our emotions are raw Kept tightly wrapped We talk of friends, the weather Never, what if………… Waiting this time is like watching for a birth

My Gran was born Florence –Imagine a baby in the 1920s With such a serious name–Burdensome, so she went by another But we never forget…

I saw my father in the mirror. The eyes within the glass— The same shade as an Oak cascaded in moss— Are an uncanny reflection of his own.

Mid-way through a week of walking the vales and fells of the Lakes | My new friend Judy asks: | What do your parents do?

I hold the paper in my hand. My case worker is friendly, not callous or distant. I ask him to decode the letter I have received in the mail. I think it says what I hope it says…

and every day my mother, who is every day a mother, looks down defeated by her hands the hands that are her mother’s hands the gnarled strega nonna branches

Run. Twirl. Swing. Dash out the door. Hop around squares. Kneel on the floor. Jump through two ropes that are turning. All as natural as a bird taking wing.

What I want the surgeon to know is not included in the pre-op interview, where my life of pain has been reduced to color-by-number shades: a lavender 4 to get out of bed, an orange 7…

Stepping out of autumn-chilled water, sun still warming my bare skin, I glance back at the lake wondering, will this be my last swim of the season?