Poets Online Archive

EXIT ROW

When seen from the window of TWA‘s flight number 171,
the clouds are thick as banks of snow.
I swear I could step out of this window
and walk thigh-deep in that snow
as I did in childhood winters long ago.
I remember when the ground seemed so firm beneath me
that I could walk safely for a year.
Today the path ahead is like these clouds,
appearing solid, but if I were to lift the heavy door
that guards us, and and step outside this window,
I would meet the cavern of tomorrow's empty space
into which we are all falling.

Brandon Baum



WCW AT TWILIGHT

Why am I standing here, eyes squinting,
my shoulder holding the refrigerator door open,
some obnoxious alarm protesting the open door
with no way to squelch it but
shut it, and never come to know?

Know what it was I just wanted.
Was it something sweet or savory or
tart or succulent, something for someone else?
Something I should know but can't remember.
Do I return without it, confused, unsatisfied?

Maybe I should shout the question across
the house, crystallize the uncertainty this moment
has wrought into proof that I've crossed
over into the miasma of the aged,
my forehead folded into a question mark?

Rob Friedman



THE BRIDGE

I stand looking for a long time
before I take the first step
since crossing over
will change things
perhaps not for the better
the path looks uncertain
perhaps damaged beyond repair.

I know what I hope is waiting
for me on the other side
but it’s beyond my view
moving ahead just a bit
things feel shaky
I’m hearing things
that don’t build confidence

I pause here
like a poet
trying to think
of the best next word.

Pamela Milne



WHAT LIES AHEAD

We are on hold
Suspended somewhere between
Diagnosis and definitive outcome
Time races at a snail's pace
Her routine colonoscopy reveals
A rectal mass -- no sign of it ten years ago
No personal or family history
Never so much as a polyp -- until now
The biopsy labels it dysplasia, the MRI, malignancy
T-1? T-2? No way to tell, until
The surgeon's instruments excise the tumor
Lab techs submit the tissue for pathology
Even then, the future will depend on
Margins, lymph nodes, post-op complications
Frequent repeat colonoscopies
Hope wrestles with despair
Once bright tomorrows
Clouded with uncertainty

Frank Kelly



THE WHITE MOTH

“Is that you, Trek?” I ask without thinking –
white moth suddenly dancing over spring green.
White moth that winged the air currents
up & down above dead dry summer grasses
the morning of your passing. I didn’t question
it was you, dog-dancer, dervish who’d tease me
with an old artichoke stalk in your jaws.
Years later, this white moth appears spiraling
over spring green – unfettered grace,
life gone to wings, gone. Where?

Taylor Graham



PRINCIPLED UNCERTAINTY

It began as a kind of humility
an unwillingness to overspeak
to fart higher than one's ass

I saw the unyeilding absolutes
of cults and sects as dead dogma
and demanded the right
to remain silent

Doubt was cherished, welcomed
as fresh air from an open window
Doubt allowed for discourse,
debate, discovery -
dialogue and dialectic
without anathema, exclusion -
face it, atheists excommunicate
as readily as any pope

But agnosticism - ah agnosticism -
alas seen as hedging bets,
playing ends against middles
refusal to silence riddles

Perhaps it was precisely
the insults and the ridicule
the all too human intolerance
that provoked a need
for grounding the thesis

and so the passive, shrugging doubt
turned inward and developed conviction
conviction of its own legitimacy

I more than doubt now -
I affirm,
that due to everything
effecting everything all the time -
due to the manifest
in-ter-con-nect-ed-ness
of the everchanging web
that we call universe,
yes, I affirm
that even if it were possible,
even if the human mind could grasp
an instant of this totality...
by the time you could express it
it would have travelled on -
continued to alter and be altered

Truth itself is, at most, ephemeral.
Uncertainty is no longer simply a posture.
It corresponds to The Nature of Reality.

Timea Deinhardt



TRICK OR TREAT?

I was sure she was a charlatan, this medium
that my smartest friend with the most degrees

had been seeing for weeks. I didn't believe
that we on earth can talk to the dead;

even Houdini couldn't speak
to Bess, his wife, from the other side.

But when grief handcuffed my rational mind
and locked it in a prison cell,

I made a date with the channeler,
who was booked for a year like a medical specialist.

I spent hours online in search of clues
about me and my husband, who died before

technology took over the world, clues I thought
the medium would read before our meeting.

Facts were scarce as food in a famine.
Yet somehow she knew a legion of details

about my life, like my best friend's name
and my first grade teacher. She channeled

the words of my mate, who said
he visits our home most evenings at nine.

Uncertainty squeezed its greasy fingers
around my brain. So now,

when I see my chandelier swing
or a breeze blows through my windowless den,

I say hello to my beloved,
feeling silly but also, hopeful.

Susan Spaeth Cherry



UNCERTAINTY
"Doubt is uncomfortable, but certainty is ridiculous." Voltaire.

I'm not sure where to start.

Perhaps with the statement, I know nothing?
Actually, that's not quite true.
I know I'm here, and I'm conscious.
I know I love my children.
(And there are ways to undermine even those simple "truths".)

Beyond those two, or three,
what do I really know?

Nothing.
And I'm not even certain
about
that.

Robert Best



NEBULOUS BORDERS

It started with an itch that shouldn't be
from wearing my wooly purple sweater,
a raised brown circle stares right back at me

from mirrors placed behind so I could see;
I tell the doctor three days later
It started with an itch that shouldn't be.

Now I await results, the biopsy,
and tell myself it will get better,
this bleeding circle staring back at me

will fade into the past like garden peas
falling from pods, a faded letter
written for an itch that shouldn't be

a young girl's dream, smooth skin, her back free
of cancer's threat. My palms get wetter,
my eyes, dark circles stare right at back at me

from sleepless nights, life's uncertainty
this inescapable locked fetter
that started with an itch that shouldn't be.
A hazy future glares in front of me.

Leslayann Schecterson



SOME BAGGAGE DOESN’T NEED WHEELS

They were uncertain of the weather
She was uncertain of her dress
He of their future
His ability to be what she needed him to be
Or at least what he thought she needed him to be
The rain came after all
But she looked beautiful
He closed his eyes
Overcome by the reality of the day
He wondered about all his choices leading up to it
Unsure if these feeling were only temporary
Did he love her this much? Did he love her enough?
Did she love him as much as she said?
Would she always?
Did they rush into it?
Did his parents?
That didn’t work out
Of that he was certain
Yet, one day he opened his eyes
Decades later
And she was still there
Still in love with him
Of course she was

Terri J. Guttilla



DON’T BLAME THE WEATHERMAN

Guy Hagi. He’s a local hero, always there for us
On the television news at 6:00 AM, wide awake,
Cheerful and full of facts about trade winds, Kona
Lows, flood watches and possible volcano eruptions.
We all trust him, except maybe the stevedores who
Work so close to the ocean. Some of them call him Lie Hagi,
Because, let’s face it, sometimes his weather predictions
Are wrong, or at least uncertain. What about that
Massive tsunami last year that never materialized?
Maybe Guy should have predicted the biggest
Traffic jam in Hawaiian history, with everybody heading up
To the hills to escape this meteorological mirage. But in
The spirit of Aloha, we have all forgiven him, especially
Since his blunder was about something bad that didn’t
Happen, unlike that August dawn when Old Lahaina
Unexpectedly disappeared forever in one day of flames.
Then there were the bridges that collapsed in our last deluge,
And the ancient boulders that rolled down onto Kamehameha
Highway, pounding it into the sea. What has happened with the
Weather, anyway? I dream about my childhood on the mainland
When cherry blossoms bloomed in April, watermelons arrived in
Time for the Fourth of July, in autumn the maple leaves turned to
Burnished orange and sunset red, and the first soft snowflakes
Fluttered down on Thanksgiving. Now, even in the islands, we
Live in a nightmare of uncertainty—droughts that never occurred
Before, wildfires stronger than an exploding star, atmospheric
Rivers—what the heck are those? And earthquakes in far away
Oklahoma, of all places. We can’t blame Guy for these anomalies,
And he’s still always so polite when he mentions the wastewater
Flowing into the sea, along with the tons of plastic choking the sharks.
After all, he knows every bit of this is our own fault.

Rose Anna Higashi



I CAN'T HELP BUT WONDER

I thought I’d been dreaming
but now,
though the mists are down
swamping everywhere
in a gloomy miasma,
I appear awake.

It seems
it was no dream
and I’d been walking,
sleep-walking,
passing the effigies
of my past times.

Me
as a child
growing up
growing older
and older.
Me
in my lost time.

And now,
awake or asleep
I’m disoriented
sleepwalking
into uncertainty
living the dream

as the future closes in
like a structure of mutating cells.
And the full moon approaches.

Lynn White



DID I MAKE THE RIGHT DECISION?
(Or Questioning Mercy & Respecting Oaths for Carole)

Was I premature when I gave them the nod?
As morning nurses pulled a couple of plugs, ,
Flipped off a few switches shut down all drip systems,
sent you on a journey to the beyond all alone;
still, unable to speak, I could have sworn you heard my
trembling voice over quiet life support systems. Right?

Was I wrong to fulfill your deathbed request?
“Separated we’ll coexist. Don’t let me suffer,” you pleaded
when healthy, detecting some uncertainty in my demeanor
fearing compassion, knowing I’d become a palliative care
worker or hospice provider for you without question, tending
to needs sans complaint, embracing your remote recovery.

Didn’t your left eye open on that final morning?
Yes, I know it–I know it. I gazed deeply into your
dilated pupil— it mirrored my tears-striped face.
Nothing else. Unresponsive to light. Unable to blink.
I often wonder, did you see me in your silence?
Were you begging me to disregard my solemn promise?

After 32 days, should I have given you more time to regain
Consciousness? I second-guess your coma release 24/7.
As ventilators ceased to assist tortured breathing your lungs
swelled—you tried to breathe! Oh God! Was I blinded by
“quality of life” concerns or too philosophical? Forgive me,
Carole, if letting you pass over was either rash or unfair.

Sterling Warner



NOT ON THE CALENDAR

There was no special day
on which we were engaged—
no particular time
we knew it had occurred.

No banns were published;
there was no exchange of rings;
no kneeling, no romantic scene,
or notice in the papers.

There was no church or minister;
no courthouse, no certificate.
We weren’t even sure when
the vows were taking place.

And there it was: suddenly,
we knew that it was happening.
Without a sound it stole upon us,
naturally as daybreak.

Lee Evans



APPOINTMENTS

The calendar X's
will soon catch up
to the blood test

I imagine the needle
entering my vein
my skin like a cushion

It will be over
before I know it
like every time

Something may come
before it
like a heart attack

Even tomorrow
in its proximity
may never arrive

Jackie Chou