Talking About Loss
On the clothesline sheets billow,
and wind baffles infant shirts—
I’m alone when sudden
seed-driven pain hits my middle
and then spots of red appear that later turn
brown, like the fur of a skinned rabbit.
Track my footsteps to the bathroom, the way
I lower myself gently onto the seat.
Track the waves of muscles through my body,
the flag of my breath, the dark
plop, like a red fist. Track the understanding
of what happened, like a plane
crashing into my day. The way my jaw
tightens. The way I carry my heartbreak
to the table and put it down like a porcelain plate.
We have no phone so I wait
until he comes home from work, the smell of hay
and animals thick on him, his knuckles
rough, the laces of his boots pulled tight. He walks
past the small white fence and I have to say
something, but I feel like all the words have slipped
out of me in that pulse of sorry crimson.
and wind baffles infant shirts—
I’m alone when sudden
seed-driven pain hits my middle
and then spots of red appear that later turn
brown, like the fur of a skinned rabbit.
Track my footsteps to the bathroom, the way
I lower myself gently onto the seat.
Track the waves of muscles through my body,
the flag of my breath, the dark
plop, like a red fist. Track the understanding
of what happened, like a plane
crashing into my day. The way my jaw
tightens. The way I carry my heartbreak
to the table and put it down like a porcelain plate.
We have no phone so I wait
until he comes home from work, the smell of hay
and animals thick on him, his knuckles
rough, the laces of his boots pulled tight. He walks
past the small white fence and I have to say
something, but I feel like all the words have slipped
out of me in that pulse of sorry crimson.
May 2024
Judy Kaber is the author of three chapbooks, most recently “A Pandemic Alphabet.” Her poems have appeared in journals such as Poet Lore, december, Hunger Mountain, and Spillway. She won the 2021 Maine Poetry Contest and was a finalist for a 2022 Maine Literary Award. She is a past poet laureate of Belfast, Maine.
Art: Amanita Muscaria Var Flavivolvata by Kat Cervantes