if we had been paying better attention
Made us see what she saw and be grateful
Stared into storms wearing night vision goggles
in case we missed some essential point
Exposed each slant of light tone of voice shadowed figure
Crafted a perfect sentence Drafted a fine line
Saw that a paragraph can hold more weight than gold
if it opened our eyes wider and we did not blink
Spoke with timbre of choruses and echoing canyons
we could hear her whispers cutting through darkness
in case we lost the soundtrack of our own lives
Understood more than most Less is more
there is little room for error restraint can be operatic
understatement can be perfect is often preferable
Laid out the sorrowful news that we will not survive
recast such tales as memoir you always lose what you need
Told us don’t bother to weep Timing is everything
Mary K O'Melveny is a recently retired labor rights attorney who lives in Washington DC and Woodstock NY. Her work has appeared in various print and on-line journals. Her first poetry chapbook A Woman of a Certain Age is available from Finishing Line Press. Mary’s poetry collection Merging Star Hypotheses was published by Finishing Line Press in January, 2020.
