Your boots sit
beside the door
as if you will
creep, turtle-mind
full of muckage,
out to drink
from the stream.
Hope is nothing
but a skull now
& you at home
as much in roots
of foamflower
as anywhere.
Once we feasted
on pizza
together
drank sassafras tea
laughed at
ridiculous things
like death, like pockets
of earth that might
swallow us
that did swallow you
long before
I sequestered myself
in a quarantined world
long before
my poems fell
into books, into quiet
word-pools
long before
madness descended
uncalled
Judy Kaber is a retired elementary school teacher, having taught for 34 years. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in numerous journals, both print and online, including Atlanta Review, december, The Comstock Review, Tar River, and Spillway.