January 2019
Mary McCarthy
mmccarthy161@gmail.com
mmccarthy161@gmail.com
I have always been a writer but spent most of my working life as a Registered Nurse. I’m one of those who write to find out what I think as well as to find a way to understand the world. I have had work published in many online and print journals, and have an electronic chapbook Things I Was Told Not to Think About available as a free download from Praxis Magazine.
Widow
the waves brought it
right to her feet
that old improbable
message in a bottle.
She took it with her
kept it near
but did not want
to open it
to spoil the mystery
of her selection.
Resting in the garden
she dreams
starfish dreams
opens her hands
like fans of coral
feels her teeth grow
smooth as pearls.
As she waits
her bones relax
as though afloat
on a languid sea
listening for the long
deep songs of whales
sounding all the names
of water
calling to her
from the drowned lands
cities lost and long
forgotten
inhabited by ghosts
and the fantastic
luminescent shapes
of strange fish
glowing in the dark.
Widow
the waves brought it
right to her feet
that old improbable
message in a bottle.
She took it with her
kept it near
but did not want
to open it
to spoil the mystery
of her selection.
Resting in the garden
she dreams
starfish dreams
opens her hands
like fans of coral
feels her teeth grow
smooth as pearls.
As she waits
her bones relax
as though afloat
on a languid sea
listening for the long
deep songs of whales
sounding all the names
of water
calling to her
from the drowned lands
cities lost and long
forgotten
inhabited by ghosts
and the fantastic
luminescent shapes
of strange fish
glowing in the dark.
© 2018 Mary McCarthy
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