August 2018
I'm a retired teacher of creative writing and literature, still very much involved with my poetry and nonfiction practices. I live with my husband, and two new rescued poodle mixes, all the way across the continent from my childhood home in NYC, and from our daughter and her family, who have settled in Maryland. Our son and his family are even farther away; he is just finishing up a Foreign Service tour in Cambodia. My most recent books of poetry are Bird Flying through the Banquet (FutureCycle, 2017), Shimmer (WordTech, 2012), and Light Lowering in Diminished Sevenths, 2nd edition (Antrim House, 2012)—winner of the 2007 Litchfield Review Poetry Book Prize.
The Blueblack Boat
O mama o papa where are you going
You watch the boats dock one by one
The gentle oarsman hands you over
You smooth your clothes
You sit as stone
O mama o papa don't smile at the riders
Don't interlace your arms with theirs
Don't lift your chins and nod to the oarsman
Who lets you close your heavy eyes
Who says release your fists of tears
The babies wave you back from the bank
Look at their wiggling wrists in my hands!
The corners of their mouths are yours
Their eyebrows' arch, their mobile ears
Yes, they are lovely, says papa to mama
As all the stars, says mama to papa
And they don't look back from the blueblack boat
And they don't come back from the blueblack boat
“The Blueblack Boat” was originally published in my first book, Shadow of Wings.
© 2018 Judy Kronenfeld
© 2018 Judy Kronenfeld
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