Articles/Essays – Volume 40, No. 1

poetry on the ‘fridge door

#1, v.1
my mother is madly licking 
at the languid red peach, 
screaming at life and 
the rust crush of death. 
an angry winter knife cuts 
toward the smooth white summer light. 
a thousand gorgeous whispers 
chant away at the black shadows. 
she senses that it is nearly over. 

alzheimer’s 

my mother licks languidly 
at a dried red peach, 
clinging to her life still, 
and the rust crush of age. 

she cannot taste the delicate 
gray winter knife tearing 
at the smooth white summer light. 
she cannot feel the 
black autumn shadow 
chasing away a thousand 
green spring wisps.

she cannot smell the 
slippery blue summer dew 
dripping onto the brown 
prism-edged autumn sand, 
she cannot see the silver 
merry-go-round winter wind 
chasing itself and roaring 
in the purple evening spring sky. 

she cannot hear the fiery, 
yellow-orange autumn fumes 
enveloping the emerald hews 
of the spring ice chunks. 

my mother cannot even sense 
that her seasons are nearly over. 
her senses say they are just beginning.