Inspired by Jane Antonia Cornish’s, “Wave Cycles”, from her album, Constellations (2018)
i am weighted by your sadness
weighed by the wait
in sorry hospital rooms
in bars and rhythmic beeps
they punctuate the silence as we stare
out green-curtained windows and wonder:
why so much snow in April?
snow clinging still to trees
to stillness in its becoming
blooming into weight, a pulse
of wait as red against a darkened screen
an LED of green, translucent
as your skin
and all this waiting
repeated steps in hallways
footfalls, silence on linoleum
silent stretcher sails past
and we see ourselves
as patients, potential waiting to occupy
that seat, that barely covered bottom
and i am watching,
feel your weight on my bones
in the blood you once transferred to me
cords never cut on birth days
only death, only days left,
weight stares out curtained windows
stares at frost from your breath
that threatens
threatens to fall like showers
April snow
falling weightless
into waves
"Wave Cycles" will be published this fall in volume 34 of The Banister Poetry Anthology, published by the Canadian Authors Association -- Niagara Branch
