COMING TO TERMS
I set aside my white smocked cotton blouse,
my pants with the elastic belly panel.
The only music in the empty house
strains from a distant country western channel.
My breasts are weeping. I've been given leave —
a week in which to heal and convalesce.
I peel away the ceiling stars, unweave
the year I'd entered on your christening dress.
I rearrange my premises - perverse
assumptions! - gather unripe figs; throw out
the bloodied bedclothes; scour the universe
in search of you. And God. And go about
my business as my crooked smile displays
the artful look of ordinary days.
YOU ARE READING
Coming to Terms
PoesiaThis is my ten-form poetry submission to the first annual ATTYS competition. All ten poems are related to the process of coming to terms with different life situations: a miscarriage, the death of a loved one in the Vietnam war; a political abductio...