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| Claudia Emerson, Florida, 2008. Photo by Joan Mazza. |
Even when your flame flickered, you still
shone in photos of the stitches of your
upper arm, broken when opening a jar.
Through surgeries and radiation, you coupled
your words with music, stanzas we entered
unafraid. You kept your smile when your hair
fell out, and showed us how to fall in love
with love again when you and Kent gazed
at each other. You said that when you were gone
women would line up around the block
with casseroles for Kent. He’s widowed
twice now. Another late wife.
Before your brain surgery, you wrote,
I hope I wake up! and you did.
How we’ll miss your light and words.
Joan Mazza has worked as a medical microbiologist, psychotherapist, seminar leader, and has been a Pushcart Prize nominee. Author of six books, including Dreaming Your Real Self (Penguin/Putnam), her poetry has appeared in Rattle, Kestrel, The MacGuffin, Mezzo Cammin, Buddhist Poetry Review, and The Nation. She ran away from the hurricanes of South Florida to be surprised by the earthquakes and tornadoes of rural central Virginia, where she writes poetry and does fabric and paper art.