In Keeping by Carrie Bond

  This piece was selected by our guest editor, Joe Russo.

“I feel it now—your face wreathed in pink flowers on a shelf, shadow of my boy on the sand.”

In Keeping by Carrie Bond

When I woke, she was still
asleep at the center of my bed
hair in tangles at her shoulders

And I felt a shock—
the woman residing
in this slight frame, blue-pale
skin beneath sheets

mouth now a flicker
of dreams close as breath.

Soon she’ll wake
to this same loss, one
that’s never quite complete.

I feel it now—your face

wreathed in pink flowers
on a shelf, shadow
of my boy on the sand.

We are all beachcombers
taking inventory:

a sill of dusty trinkets. See,
below the chrome fender
of an old farm truck

my father’s feet dangling.

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Carrie Bond has a BA in English and an MA in English/Education from Brooklyn College. A former teacher, now a freelance editor, she writes when she’s not chasing two kids and other priorities. You can find some of her poems online in the Hamilton Stone Review.