Short Fiction
Poem
1 min
My Father Writes a Poem for my Mother
Anita Skeen
"When you write about your mother passing,"
he says to me from beside her bed where he has spent
the night, "and I know you will, be sure to say
last night it rained, that the rain she asked about
each day played for her on the moonsoaked river
and that, in the early hours, the birds
lit up the sky with song and the bush out front,
the bleeding heart, which all winter sagged
so sick and scraggly, opened out this morning,
the green leaves licked by tongues of rain,
the little hearts lined up like get-well cards
on her dresser scarf, and that out back,
there on the east side of the house,
where the bud has been so small
and tight, the amaryllis burst this morning
into bloom, and that it's raining
still, it's raining still."
My Father Writes a Poem for my Mother was selected for MSUL’s themed call for work about Water, in coordination with the MSU Broad Art Museum’s fall 2023 exhibition, Flint is Family in Three Acts, featuring the photography of Latoya Ruby Frazier.
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