Retreat
Love sometimes requires retreating,
backing up,
reversing the pace
that brought us into spaces
where nothing was ever comfortable,
no memory or seat we could share,
no reserve preserved for those worst hours,
emotion
Cave
Cold closes its jaws on sunlight, thin remains of air. That brutal beauty of headstrong hope. -Katherine Gotthardt
Cherry Tree
Nighttime cherry tree, impending windstorm. Pang of letting go. -Katherine Gotthardt Painting by Andrew Gotthardt
Bedside
Bedside, I hold your plump hand, cold, white thread of foam sewing your lips shut, as if you disapprove of crying. It would be horrible if not for the knowing you’d transformed, universe having finished contracting, your soul sucked backed to the source, reverse birth, energy united, ready for reincarnation. How I’ll remember that exact
Placid Bay
for my mother-in-law on the morning of her passing These leaves, white with winter, and those frozen, spiky cones, then, a cement barrier, marked “no trespassing,” protecting a broken dam– seagulls pay no mind to signs. On the side of the rough road, two frozen dandelions, still yellow, look ridiculously optimistic, as a horn beeps
Cucumber
That garden you decided to plant? How it took time to turn over the soil, get past the sweat, that insistent dust settling on your white sneakers. You cussed. Later you’d take that first bite of cucumber, squirting refreshment from summer rains, several thick slices inviting another serving. It felt a little like happiness.
Empathy
By Katherine Gotthardt The turtle has been crushed by a mower, life leaving through cracks in its shattered shell, coagulated, looking like cranberries and minced meat, the poor thing bobbing an intact head trying to look behind itself, as if wondering what could have gone wrong. And I am devastated because I can neither put
3 a.m.
By Katherine Gotthardt Often now, I think about death, usually at 3 a.m. when I wake to the thin skin of all that separates us. They say that’s when the dead speak, spirits and the living reside in one world, and anyone you miss is a but a pinpoint’s distance to your fingertips.
