October 2023
Bio Note: Every poem is a journey, every journey, a poem. In my journeys, I have published two poetry collections (The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Finishing Line Press and Somewhere in the Telling, Mellen Press), and three chapbooks, the latest is Talking Me Off The Roof, Kelsay Books. I have been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and a Best of the Net Prize.
My Husband’s Hands
scarred and sturdy
contemplate the possibilities
of sampaguita, bougainvillea.
Crescent moon nails fill
with dirt and sand.
Setting rocks around
mounds of earth,
he picks the first pepper,
its skin sturdy as the hands
that hold it.
He tells me in a voice
firm as rocks set in soil:
What we love, we can hold.
I bend down low,
take a shell white petal in my hand,
and smell the sampaguita.
For My Husband, on the Aging of His Mother
When did you two become friends?
Is that what happens eventually
to sons who come to know
a mother when the care changes hands—
from the first soft, pink palm
to the sturdy gripped and chapped one,
helping her from bed to breakfast and then back again,
every day the same rotation of pills and pillows
then seeking a moment when joy can enter,
like a stray cat looking for a lap to purr away the day,
as if there were nothing better to do?
©2023 Laurie Kuntz
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