ATTENDING A MOVIE OF OUR LIFE

Mary K O’Melveny


We want our memories to be like movies.
Edges round and full, bathed in cinematic
sound. Dialogue filled with wit and warmth.
A John Williams score rising as suspense
builds, softening as angry words dissolve
to tender touch. Golden statues in reward.

One night in Ireland, my mother and I
were settled in before a stone fireplace,
Irish coffees steaming in tall glasses
on our well-used round wooden table.
The pub was darkened with history
yet somehow radiant, as if all the stories

shared there had cast their warmth
on the rough pine floorboards, layered
over the uneven horse plaster walls.
We were no exception. Warmed by
whiskey, freed from time, our
conversation stretched into the long night,

burnished by our recall of those
we had loved against others’ odds.
We occupied the director’s chairs.
Our scripts were epic. Perhaps we tinkered
a bit with casting, set design but we
were certain of the endings we desired. 


* * * * *

"Attending a Movie of Our Life" is part of Mary K O'Melveny's new poetry collection Dispatches from the Memory Care Museum (Kelsay Books 2021).

Mary K O’Melveny (www.marykomelvenypoet.com) lives with her wife in Woodstock NY and Washington DC. A Pushcart Prize nominee and award recipient in national and international poetry contests, including Slippery Elm Literary Journal Poetry Competition, The Pangaea Prize (The Poet’s Billow), Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Competition, Writer’s Digest Annual Poetry Competition, Anthology Magazine Poetry Prize, Mary’s poetry appears in many literary journals, anthologies, national blog sites such as Writing In A Woman’s Voice and in three collections: A Woman of a Certain Age, Merging Star Hypotheses  (Finishing Line Press 2018, 2020), Dispatches From the Memory Care Museum (Kelsay Books 2021).