Remembering to Breathe
Poems by Helen Wickes
Sunday Obits | ER Blues | November’ Blade
Sunday Farm Days | A Ma’s Opinion
The Slow Unwind | Running for Cover
Where’d the Days Go To | Another War, Again
Sunday Obits
Forty souls today I look at each of you From Bartholdi, through Matthews To Zischla. I greet you Look into your eyes As you all gaze back at us Oh, you with the red bow tie And you with your good pearls The yellow cat held up, the fine Leather jacket, a raised martini All that colors and flavors our days After a long illness, we know What that means, don’t we You and you, some so young And then you, that place Behind you, lush and green I know that place, our beloved Botanical Garden. Dear forty People, I see you, I name you Won’t be that long, I’ll be Joining you, but now Time to close the paper, Remembering to breathe
ER Blues
Someone’s been shot, someone’s OD’d That guy fell, that dame, her heart Oooh, that guy tried to bring in his guns Police in front of Room 14, Room 23 We’re waiting for your test, for a room Waiting room stuffed with all of us scared Lonely, angry, helpless souls, all waiting For a nurse to call a name, a doc to appear Walking out for water, grabbing glimpses Of the vast, mysterious life here, a long day Your wheelchair squeaks, your phone bleeps It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it Obviously, it was, we hadn’t read the signs Watched the stars, turned the right card over Here we are, all day, and I’ll drive you home Tonight, and we’ll still be the lucky ones.
November’s Blade
November frost, the cornfields cut back Brilliant necks of pheasants flash ruby, emerald Smoke from chimneys, cattle calling, Guys in trucks racing home for warmth and food Land spreads out, meadow to thicket, field to copse That corner lot, you can scramble to find it Tiny graveyard, overrun with brambles and ivy Burial ground of local Black people, a hundred years ago Shaded, hallowed spot. In my childhood Main Street Had white businesses here, Blacks over there No one crossed the street to say hello, buy a paper Get a haircut here, or pants hemmed there Italians and Puerto Ricans, tired from working The mushroom houses, shuffled between two worlds November chill, it sharpens memory, a quick, thin blade Peeling oblivion’s skin, the forgotten rising to light.
Sunday Farm Days
He’d drive to town, bring home donuts And two dailies, for him The Inquirer Mobsters gunned down, molls hauled off Blood in the streets, silver bullet casings The photos made you hear it all, while Ma Held our local; the lightning strike, barn fire Rabid dog, guy gored by a bull, tractor wreck Small stuff compared to Dad’’s big-city rag But between them the muttered asides about Ike, or her guy, Stevenson; the bomb; Russia; The Mob, they agreed on the screwed up Wannabes sent down to work our local Mushroom houses, shoulder deep In real poop, real stink, before hauled back To Philly or Jersey from our county The Mushroom Capital of the World I listened, scarfed donuts; they were so happy those hours, those days.
A Ma’s Opinion
And how they salt the days Horizontal stripes make you look fat Why does dad have nightmares You need to go braid your hair Why’s he yell about Mussolini Wear a pink dress, you can’t wear jeans Why do those people only shop on the west side of Main Street Start the percolator, mind your brother God, you’re pale, smear on baby oil Where’s Korea, what’s a bomb shelter Shake hands, look her in the eye If you don’t make friends you’ll be Lonely forever, so learn to play tennis Where’s forever, how can I get there But Ma, I still miss you, every day.
The Slow Unwind
Derby day, I had flown in from away and we two Watched on the kitchen tv, after Ma stomped off, Saying mind him till I’m home, first hint I got And then the chestnut colt crossed the finish line As I noted his shoulder set, hip angle, reminding Me of another big red colt we’d known. He grunted, not pro or con, not the old days Declamation, explanation, stories, laughter, Just a who gives a shit grunt, and I got the whiff Him losing that mind, and was ignorant. What happens, losing a mind, as if it goes elsewhere, Hides out, gone awol, borrowed, run away, but no, That diminution starting up, slow then faster, Unraveling his keen, sharp brain, as we Watched, helpless, inside, outside, his rage, ours, And years later, pawing through memories, Eager to be lit up again by that bright, gone glow.
Running for Cover
We’re hiking Coyote Canyon, an offshoot trail, high and higher, so tranquil, the purple lupine blazing, the scarlet chuparosa, when they come over us, again, our boys in the military jets practicing again, as they do, always needing a desert to strafe, flying low and so loud, probably pleased to watch us ducking, cowering, hands over ears, as any incidental civs will do. Then they’re gone, our war boys, over the San Felipe Mountains, back to base, and we’re here, not in Ukraine or Gaza, just here, trying to exhale, to reel some quiet from the sky, scoop it from the still echoing canyons.
Where’d the Days Go To
Sound of the raucous mountain jay, and sapphire wing tints jagged through red fir and lodgepole, as every day the wind came up, scent of those trees, soothing and dispersing our fears of who’s sicker, who’s dying, for hours at a time. We’ll not hike up again to Granite Lake, where, younger, oblivious of our still good fortune, we huddled against boulders, the granite alive with chrystaline glints and heft, you handing me cracker, cheese, apricot, sunlight bouncing off cold wataer, dark pools in the shade, we had a life, we have had lives.
Another War, Again
One leans across, questioning how can you Think that, another says how could they do this thing, that act, yet another sits back Listening, herding random thoughts Tonal shifts, voices at table, this quiet room in a café, everyone stirring bad coffee, immersed In the ongoing war, then this new one Voices arguing, asking who’s reading what Someone’s waiting for eggs, another for bacon Everyone calibrating loss from far away War time, always and everlasting, old people Sip bad coffee, flooded with images This world we never grasped, slipping Further away. The scone is stale, the sun Too hot, we can’t name this shifting language Grey bird on the magnolia, and above The loud jets fly way too low, and outside Sirens slice through the morning. This life.
Helen Wickes has had four books of her poetry published: Moon Over Zabriskie (Glass Lyre Press, 2014), Dowser’s Apprentice (Glass Lyre Press, 2014), and In Search of Landscape (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2007). She lives in Oakland, California, and worked for many years as a psychotherapist. She received an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars in 2002. Her poems published by online journals can be read at her author’s page, and additional poems can be read and heard online at From The Fishouse. Helen’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in Agni, Amethyst Arsenic, Apricity Magazine, Atlanta Review, Boulevard, Carousel Magazine, Catamaran Literary Reader, Clare, Confrontation, Delmarva Review, Euphony Journal, Ghost Town, Massachusetts Review, New English Review, The Offbeat, Passager, Pirene’s Fountain, Slag Review, Sagarana, Schuylkill Valley Journal of the Arts, Evening Street Review, Origins Journal, SLANT, Summerset Review, Soundings East, South Dakota Review, Spillway, Spoon River Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Westview, Willow Review, Zone 3, and ZYZZYVA, among many others.
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