I ask myself how to grieve for my bones I ask myself how to feel them thinning I ask myself why I don’t feel it I ask myself what I was looking for in the closet of my scaffolding I ask why it was locked I ask to say a few words of remembrance for the framework I ask to sit in a field of butterflies because they don’t live long I ask to break out of this cage I ask to think of bone broth I cry I try matching outside to inside I support myself can I imagine myself stooped over I ask you to hold my hand as we watch a puff of clouds trek above our bodies and dissolve
Phyllis Klein is a psychotherapist and poet in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, most recently Sheila Na-Gig, Comstock Review, Mad Swirl, and The New Verse News. She has won several finalist awards. Her book, The Full Moon Herald, was a 2021 finalist in the Eric Hoffer awards. She hosts Poets in Conversation, a Zoom reading series started during the pandemic.
3/6 / Meet the Artist with visiting poet-in-residence Keetje Kuipers / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 6:00 pm EST / Free
3/6 / Poetry Reading with visiting poet-in-residence Keetje Kuipers + local writer Julie Marie Wade / The Library at The Betsy-South Beach, Miami Beach, FL / Live and Live-Streamed on Instagram Live/Facebook Live at @swwimmiami / 7:30 pm EST / Free
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wow what a poem, from the first line on. line breaks do a lot for this too. spare and melancholy, then the clouds, all dissolves....
The language of the poem is appropriate for the situation of bones. You have a few lines that gave me a pause for they are well-written poetically and otherwise.
I read this poem with pleasure.