My Mother Has a Stroke, and I— 

           am the calm hand
on the elbow, the steadying 
voice. The embrace.
I am the calendar. The ear on the phone. 
The pen, taking notes. 

I am holding my mother’s dreams     
to her lips. 
I am wrapping my father’s dread 
in soft songs.

Days take the shape of 
leaping.
Nights carry edges 
of yet to be
done.

I feel the lines on my face 
drawing tight.

I keep bruising my head 
on the corners of decisions.
I am spinning. 
I am swallowing my tongue.

---

Jennifer L Freed lives in Massachusetts. Recent work appears/is forthcoming in Atlanta Review, Atticus Review, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, Willawaw, The Worcester Review, Zone 3, and others. Her chapbook, These Hands Still Holding, (Finishing Line) was a finalist in the 2013 New Women's Voices competition. Her poem sequence, "Cerebral Hemorrhage," won the 2020 Samuel Washington Allen Prize from the New England Poetry Club.

Art: The Girl by the Window, Edvard Munch. Public Domain.