by Lori Corry
Kingston Hospital’s otherworldly oncology ward
was teeming with the gorgeous living kind.
They had names like Eve and Grace and Temperance,
the week my father died, their hands on my shoulders
reminding me that sometimes to love is to let it go.
A gentle push to save myself and someone else.
The knowing nod, the windshield wave,
the sweet smiling woman in the old yellow toyota
at Miacomet Ave and Surfside.
We simultaneously slam on the brakes
the man on the bike appears from nowhere.
Miraculous whispers to stop, to stop, to stop, to stop.
A gentle push to save myself and someone else.
It’s not how I’d expect the transmission to feel
no winged beings appear, the sky does not open,
it’s more split-second decisions, the small moments,
the opportunity to tell the young mother with the tiny child
playing in the surf from Somewhere far away
that today’s rip tide is so strong, invisible forces
pulling the living underneath the surface.
A gentle push to save myself and someone else
The old stones of evil are falling
while the angels remain firmly planted.
Rosa rugosa scatters its brilliant pink petals
all over the sand honoring all the beings
that could not be saved, still
I am standing here, at dawn.
A gentle push to save myself and someone else.
Lori Corry is a year-round resident of Nantucket Island, MA. She spends time investigating feminine divine energies and gaining creative inspiration from the stories and myths of our world’s many goddesses. Her poetry has been published in Chronogram Magazine and the Lily Poetry Review. Sabiyha Prince is an anthropologist, artist, and author based in Washington, DC. Her books and essays explore urban change and African American culture, and her paintings and photo collages grapple with memory, identity, kinship and inequality.
Global Poemic 