MEGAN DUFFY BROWN

HOLD LIKE WATER

I am not grasping things 
like I used to.  

Yesterday
a water glass 
slipped from my right hand 
before I caught it 
with my left. 

I am unable to hold onto 
a new name     names. 

Titles of hurricanes 
in alpha-order are easy 
but I have not lived 
through a storm called me.

I persist in the soul
of my body.

 When a loved one
embraces me
it drowns out 
the grind in my knees.  

My son          
Have you met him?
is named for the sea.

I tried once to hold the bay
but it only trickled through 
my webbed fingers,
and now I string together 
descriptions
of flowing bodies of water, 
from creek to ocean
meander and crash
the warm and deep 
ink-colored night  
that flashes forth 
one mystical dawn.  

I am a nomad 
in a galaxy of verbs.
I inscribe my days 
by endeavoring  
to fully live them.

 __________

MEGAN DUFFY BROWN IS A POET AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATOR. HER POEMS, ONE OF WHICH EARNED A PUSHCART-NOMINATION, HAVE BEEN PUBLISHED BY MOONSTONE PRESS, MIGOZINE, AND FORUM MAGAZINE AND HAVE AIRED ON LOCAL RADIO. SHE HOLDS AN MFA IN CREATIVE WRITING AND IS CO-EMCEE/ CO-CURATOR FOR THE OPEN MIC AND COMMUNITY-POETRY PROJECT SPEAKERS’SPACE IN HALF MOON BAY, CALIF. TWITTER: @MEGANDBROWN