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.
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