Meditation
A layer of dust, offending
squatter, shroud.
Marooned on your
dresser: perfume, ring holder,
watch, jewelry box.
My hands, ocean tide,
sorting flotsam as
my mind agitates, drifts
on daydreams, surfs
in salty wake of
your absence.
Afternoon sobs become
seagulls, lift into
blue sky bereft of clouds,
wings stirring scorched air.
Roses drop petals like jetsam,
desperate, like me, to sail through
this rough patch.
Everything here signals
the trauma of your passing,
leaving us listing,
rudderless
Even the house groans
its complaint
in night's blue hour.
Once, a small girl asked about
birds cooing at dusk. How
to explain to one so young
about doves, to learn
both mourning and morning
to accept not knowing
which will come first.
squatter, shroud.
Marooned on your
dresser: perfume, ring holder,
watch, jewelry box.
My hands, ocean tide,
sorting flotsam as
my mind agitates, drifts
on daydreams, surfs
in salty wake of
your absence.
Afternoon sobs become
seagulls, lift into
blue sky bereft of clouds,
wings stirring scorched air.
Roses drop petals like jetsam,
desperate, like me, to sail through
this rough patch.
Everything here signals
the trauma of your passing,
leaving us listing,
rudderless
Even the house groans
its complaint
in night's blue hour.
Once, a small girl asked about
birds cooing at dusk. How
to explain to one so young
about doves, to learn
both mourning and morning
to accept not knowing
which will come first.
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Peggy HammondPeggy Hammond's recent poems appear or are forthcoming in The Blue Mountain Review, Thin Air Magazine, Spare Parts Lit, Thimble Literary Magazine, Olit, Club Plum, UCity Review, Heimat Review, Anti-Heroin Chic, River & South Review, The Paper Crow, and elsewhere. She is a Best of the Net nominee and the author of The Fifth House TIlts (Kelsay Books, 2022).
Website: Peggy Hammond Poetry Twitter: @PHammondPoetry |