The Last Report of the Day
I saw you, Adrienne Rich.
In my dream we were walking
like old friends, conspicuously
cool, our maps drawn
long before we took up pens
eyes searching for something
deeper than the wrinkles on our skin.
I felt your hand, crooked with arthritis
brush mine
in the depths of my consciousness
like a stirring of memory
you became every mother
I had ever lost
to a bigger cause
the world too hungry
the lines too sharp
for me to cross.
I was a little girl then
all my unspoken need
pulsing like a lighthouse
your untranslatable language
transmitted through my pores
a scent you recognised.
You didn’t need to say anything
the battery of signals
that battered you
like we’ve all been battered
I felt those signals in my shoulders
hunched against a rising wind.
Gently, but with reasonable force
you pushed my scapulae back
told me, sternly,
like any mother would
to stand up straight.
- Magdalena Ball 2015
Magdalena Ball was born in New York City and now lives in Lake Macquarie, NSW. She runs The Compulsive Reader review site and is the author of the novels Black Cow and Sleep Before Evening, a book of poetry Repulsion Thrust and a number of other chapbooks, collaborative works and nonfiction. Her poems and stories have been shortlisted for a several awards including, locally, the Newcastle Poetry Prize, the Grieve Writing Competition, and the Bayside Poetry Prize, and her work has been widely published in local and international literary journals. Find out more about Magdalena at www.magdalenaball.com.
1 comment:
That's a ripper!
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