February 2024
Mary McCarthy
mmccarthy161@gmail.com
Bio Note: I am a retired Registered Nurse and have had work published in many journals and anthologies. My first collection, How to Become Invisible, is just out from Kelsay Books, available from me, from Kelsay, and on Amazon.

Two Sisters

We were like Martha and Mary
in the bible story
one always ready
for the task at hand
smoothing all the snags
out of the day’s hard turnings,
keeping things in order,
taking care that meals
were made, guests welcomed,
while I read and dreamed
in the space you cleared for me,
stitching stories into fabrics
both of us could wear.

We shared more than blood
and circumstance,
understood hard blows and curses
could come even on
the calmest day, unannounced
until they fell on us
in sudden punishing hail
that would leave us bruised,
wary and defiant,
ready to quietly subvert
the peace he thought to win
with our subjection.

No one else knew
how it was, how it worked,
why we never talked
or begged for mercy.
It was as secret and miraculous
as communion,
taken dry and brittle
on the tongue.
Something only we remember
and carry with us
like a scar 
no matter how well
we dress, how far we go
or what else we try so
hard to forget.

Up Early

Enough to see the cranes fly 
hear their raucous cries
feel their shadows pass
like the shadows of clouds
weightless and temporary.

On this blameless morning
you raise your voice
and your words fall on me
fast and hard 

Until I close my eyes 
and go dark 
my voice 
rust 
in my throat.

Conversation

I never see it coming
the one that ends with both of us
walking away forever-
too absorbed in the story
I’m spinning up around us
too invested in my narrative
to notice how every footnote
contradicts the text

Always astonished
caught off guard
by acts I could not imagine
characters coming up
like weeds in a dream garden
shapes and flowers
so bold and so unusual
I can’t exclude them, blame them
even as they freight the air
with poisons–

Should I apologize?
was my carelessness the engine
unhinging all our dreams?
this little square of stage
our last platform
where we stand together
waiting for different trains

I can’t parcel blame
so that it falls on you
more than my own
ineptitude-
wishing I could remember
more than our ruins
©2024 Mary McCarthy

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