M. D. Friedman
Finding My Own Moon
there is
something in this skinny howl of coyote that juliennes the night as if it were a brick of dark chocolate something that chases its own tail in wild circles contagious with the joy of a dervish something in that slide up to the high howl and in the quivering sustain that follows that chills the blood and makes me stop whatever I am doing to find my own moon The Last Time He Opened His Eyes
These eyes, the color of fog,
blind as night, reaching out of the driftwood of his body in place of the arms he could not move, they held me in a way no arms could. He, who has given so much, gave me now this final gift, this last time together. This lover of sunsets and old trees, his face now a shadow cast down by disease, lay rough and limp as parchment, an old map washed ashore by time. In every dark wrinkle, through each drawn crease, and over the strangely smooth hollows of his cheeks, flowed the gentle kindness that marked his life. As this, his last sunset broke in exquisite sadness, there were no colored clouds to share the waking dusk. All his strength went into his breathing, all his will to open these eyes the color of fog heavy with the last light. Never too old to slam
A performance of the poem can be played below. If you would like to see a printed version of the poem, you can do that here.
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Girl braiding hair
She combs her hair as if to untangle
the tussle of his touch, powders plum skin still stinging from his grizzled tentacle, over is over when the pain begins. Elderberry lips are smeared red to hide the ache, and the baby that was to be, a hated thing, no longer lives inside, over is over, at last she writhes free. Emerging from tide pools, how her eyes swell, gleam blue, brim briny with bright tears of no; her anguish, a warped lens, a fractured shell, over is over wherever she goes. Easy enough to layer a right hand full of hair limp on the wild red rope held snug by left, hand upon hand upon hand, over is over, when love's flame is quelled. Not so simple now to grab another fist full of life, or to be braided again, when what blooms and wrenches within is missed, over is over when twisted hurt ends. --from "Inspired," a Loveland Museum Gallery Anthology, 2011, by permission. Bedside Manner
~upon the passing of my mother
The dying have no sense of when. Everything is was, each breath, a terrible wind. The light of those they love gathers like a tempestuous mob shaking smoking torches outside the window, blazes like a hidden sun, flooding the river of glass with the searing certainty of inevitable dawn. The dying always walk the other way, forgetting all paths lead back, like breathing, the way in is the way out. I was there when she tumbled like a flaming magnolia down the long well of her mind. I felt the exquisite weightlessness, then her fear. What happens at the bottom? She clenched my hand in hers in mine in hers. Although she was ashen as a tear of dust, hollow as the peeled skin of snake, I asked her if she remembered the time in temple when her just fallen father's thick veined hand squeezed hers squeezing mine. He came to tell you it's all right. She remembers to let go. Falls forever. Nothing is more beautiful. --from Leaning Toward Whole, a Liquid Light Press Chapbook, 2011, by permission |