I cradle the phone gently.
You are so far away.
Your grief surrounds you now
like a moat full of dark water.
I cannot reach
far enough to comfort you.
My words flit around, useless
as flies.
What, after all, can be said?
It’s a parent’s worst nightmare, you say.
I imagine I would have howled.
I imagine I would have rolled on the floor.
But in the end, I cannot begin to imagine.
I’ll be okay, you say,
but your voice is so remote,
as if you’ve left us all
behind,
for a bleaker planet
where the air is charred,
and you cannot find the path
that leads
back home.
Marsha Barber is the author of two poetry books: What Is the Sound of Someone Unravelling (Borealis Press, 2011) and All the Lovely Broken People (Borealis Press, 2015). She has won several first-place awards from The Ontario Poetry Society and been shortlisted for the international Bridport Prize for poetry and longlisted for the national ReLit Award. Marsha’s work has been published in a wide range of periodicals including The Antigonish Review, The New Quarterly, The Walrus and The Prairie Journal.
Advertisement
Advertisement