Joy Gaines-Friedler

Ashland University MFA Alum

friday

Black capped terns track ahead of me. Morning.
Beach. Deserted. I walk where waves break
then spill their energy.

Sand solid like skin. I sink slightly, still held safe.

Hospice nurses from Miami start Critical Care.
Later, I hear it called Comfort Care. They can

read the phases of her breathing, the pallor of skin.
Still in her wheelchair a shot of morphine
helps her breathe. They take her to her room.

I follow like a noun: Daughter.
Seven states away my mother’s life mooned into loss:

First keys, then walking, then, as though the new moon
hidden in the shadow of the sun, speech.

All my life she perched on a broken branch.

Settled in her dream state,
I take my rented car, bring back tacos
for the nurses who talk about lunch.

VIGILANCE NOTES - SUNDAY

The greatest insights happen to us in moments of awe.

               Abraham Heschel

Write:
Small white flowers bloom
along the edge of the pond.
A heron toe-pointes into the water.

Write:
I have made an appointment with the lawyer,
thanked the angel caregivers, faxed
the funeral home. The air is a damp ribbon.
I have eaten little.

    In the distance intercostal bridges open
    in perfect succession.

                                                     Plato says the soul
   is imprisoned in the body. I remember this
   as I watch a pair of smooth-stoned birds—
   mourning doves – build a nest
   beside a blue wall, their shadows
   so much larger than their bodies.

Write:
What primal desire does it take to build a nest?

She never learned to drive.
Her Hyperloop, her helix was my father,
took her to the beauty shop,
to the grocery store, waited for her
in wait rooms, her kite builder, her skate rink.

As she slips further—

Write:
I whispered in her ear: Bravo—
Such obstinate courage to hold out on more day.

Write:
The sun will rise tomorrow,
on the anniversary of my father’s death,
& again those drawbridges will open.

2016 ALUM OF ASHLAND MFA, JOY GAINES-FRIEDLER'S BOOK CAPTURE THEORY IS A 2018 FOREWORD REVIEW INDIE PRESS FINALIST.