"Imprint," poem by Sherry W. Smith

[Sherry Weaver Smith]

Here is my last poem for the Eisteddfod. Thanks for reading.

Imprint

Asleep she bends in a nautilus shape.
I imagine her full of airy spiral chambers
buoyant with dream images
not anchored to any stories.
Float up to leaves, fall down as snow.

She is in the spaces
between each rattling breath.
or in small coughs,
or in the way she startles
at noise I don't hear.

A fever, back from a rush to the E.R.,
her feet in cotton socks.
She has not yet stood.
Her feet have never felt her heaviness
reflected from the ground.

Her outline blurs at dusk
like the shadow of her cat balloon.
It could float away from me
on a string not wound
tight enough.
I could lose sight of it to night
without moon or stars.

But when I lift her, she has left an imprint
of weight on the bed.
She keeps her arms, tree-branch strong, crossed
over her heartbeat.
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