In the Healer’s Room

by Andrea Potos


I felt myself carried
across wine-dark waters
as if a ship’s manifest were kept
near me, the unknown
and the known—
paternal grandmother Helen, 
a scared girl of seven coming over
from Patras; 
maternal grandmother Aristea,
an astonished bride of 19
from Piraeus, holding my 
8-month-old mother in her arms 
as the ship rose and dipped, glided
and churned along the endless
waves for weeks.  
I give thanks to the waters
that held them up to land them here,
where I may remember something
of their stories within
my body now.  


* * * * *

"In the Healer's Room" is from Andrea Potos's collection Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press),

Andrea Potos is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books), Mothershell (Kelsay Books), A Stone to Carry Home (Salmon Poetry, Ireland) and Yaya's Cloth (Iris Press).  Her poems can be found widely in print and online. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

Final Poem for an Estranged Friend
                            for S.

by Andrea Potos


My last dream had me chasing you 
along some narrow stone path rising and twisting 
on a Greek island mountainside
while I screamed at you to finally believe
I had not wronged you. Still,
you kept your righteous gait.  

I awoke exhausted from all
my efforts, recent and past,
decided I must rest.
I remembered, in the dream,
in the darkness beside me lay the Mediterranean 
sea of my ancestors, lapis and deep
and dazzling by daylight—
water that knew my innocence.  


* * * * *

"Final Poem for an Estranged Friend" is from Andrea Potos's collection Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books)

Andrea Potos is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books), Mothershell (Kelsay Books), A Stone to Carry Home (Salmon Poetry, Ireland) and Yaya's Cloth (Iris Press).  Her poems can be found widely in print and online. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Still Here

by Marjorie Moorhead


In the morning,
fallen, frozen
apple tree leaves
multicolored, and framed
with frosted edge,
have followed the last
dried apples off their branch,
down to the wood of our deck.
They’ll be blown away
by November winds;
colorful fluttering signs
of a lifecycle stage.

How wonderful
to have witnessed
so many.


* * * * *

"Still Here" was previously published 11/12/2020 in Poems for World AIDS Day 2020, HIV Here &Now

Marjorie Moorhead writes from the VT/NH border, surrounded by mountains in a river valley, with four season change. Her work addresses environment, survival, noticing the “every day”, and how we treat each other. Marjorie’s poems can be found in many anthologies, websites, and her two chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (FLP 2019) and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). 

Unfinished

by Ajanta Paul


No point in eking out a poem
which has completed its journey,
for those extra lines
will merely prolong its length
not its life.

A complete poem
remains forever unfinished,
beginning new symphonies
in a variety of keys,
and forging epiphanies
through dissonant discoveries.


* * * * *

Dr Ajanta Paul is an academic from Kolkata, India who writes poetry, short stories and literary criticism. A Pushcart nominee, Ajanta has lately been lucky with literary journals such as Verse-Virtual, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Shot Glass Journal and Offcourse. Her latest publications are The Elixir Maker and Other Stories (2019) and American Poetry: Colonial to Contemporary (2021).

BEAR

by Tina Klimas


I live—unobtrusive,
of the earth—with my
purpose, with my cubs.
I sleep in snow
for what you think
is a long enchanted winter.
Snowflakes
amass outside my den
in what appear to you
to be soft, peaceful drifts.
I and this wilderness serve
to inspire your holidays
and your fairy lore.
I allow you to nurture
your infants with plush
replicas of my own.
But dare to jab at me.
Rob me of my dignity
and steal my purpose.
Replace my truth
with your falsehoods.
Wake me up—
and the snow will become
a killing avalanche.
I could bury you, if I choose,
and my roar will be mighty.
Your mountains of steel
will echo with it.
The avalanche will melt
and the deluge
will come for you.
And then,
you will have to face me.


* * * * *

Tina Klimas's poems can be found in THEMA Literary Journal, Bear River Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Backchannels, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Willows Wept Review, and Glassworks Magazine. Her short fiction has also been published in several journals. She enjoys her writing life in Redford, MI where she lives with her husband and their dog.  

TIME

by Tina Klimas


The queen’s reflection
has vanished.
She fears that she
is dead.  But it is worse
even than that.
A ghastly mask floats
from the mirrored depths.
Its gaping pit of a mouth
issues a decree:

From hence forth
you will be invisible.

Time to allow the young
to be beautiful and breed, 
as flowers to bees.
As it should be.
So she does.
She robes herself
in what feels like a disguise.
Elderly. Witch. 
She removes herself
from the ripe work
of the garden. Finds a hut
in a cave to sequester herself.

Because she still believes
she has things to do—
outdated recipes to brew,
unwanted tales to scribe,
irrelevant books to read—
she requires an alarm clock
for her cave-hut.
The mask reappears
in the glass, twisted
into a comic cackle,
taunting her:

This clock. This one. So easy to use
even a grandma can figure it out!

Rage subsumes her
until she believes
she could rip a heart out
with her bare hands,
encase it in a bejeweled box.
Yet, how
to find a beating heart
in a snickering bodiless
ghoul? Who has seeped
into all places. Who
can persuade everyone
that everyone believes a thing
until everyone does.
She will make it flesh,
then tear it apart.

A huntsman awaits,
a youth who desires
to be emboldened.
But, he seizes her arsenal
for himself—her strength,
her experience.
She must surrender all of it.
Even her intellect.
Even her wisdom.
Rage spits her out, then
and leaves her—
a tired old woman
whose clock has ceased.

And that liar’s heart
will keep beating.


* * * * *

Tina Klimas's poems can be found in THEMA Literary Journal, Bear River Review, The Sow’s Ear Poetry Review, Backchannels, Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Willows Wept Review, and Glassworks Magazine. Her short fiction has also been published in several journals. She enjoys her writing life in Redford, MI where she lives with her husband and their dog.  

Happy Thanksgiving to all. Thank you for being part of Writing In A Woman's Voice, as audience or contributor. 

Here is a link to a Thanksgiving poem: The Thanksgivings by Harriet Maxwell Converse - Poems | poets.org