by Robin S. Axworthy
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| Photo credit: Bette Ferber via The New York Times. |
I have grown used to the moisture of my own breath
on night walks, the mask, the sound of my own breathing
pushed up past my ears. Used to my own company at home,
with only husband and sometimes daughter. Used to any other
contacts as just the glass and scratch of microphone, letters
appearing and sorting into sense on a screen. Used to touch
as poison to be scraped clean with alcohol and friction.
Accustomed now to nearness an electric buzz of warning
away from flesh, ears so used to staccato whine they have forgotten
rippling waterfall of open mouth, mouth forgotten how breath
feels naked and dry, thin in the bare air, my hands so used to solitude
they’ve forgotten how to find their way to warmth.
Robin S. Axworthy has been published in various anthologies including, most recently, Dark Ink: An Anthology Inspired by Horror (Moon Tide Press) and Is It Hot in Here or Is It Just Me? Women Over Forty Write on Aging (Beautiful Cadaver Project). Her chapbook Crabgrass World was published in March 2020 by Moon Tide Press.