After the raccoon gutted one of our last two hens
out pecking and scratching the spent garden for seeds and bugs
before the freeze, we’d find her partner pressed against the panes
on the porch day after day. Not that she wanted in, nor would
she accept any comfort from voice or hand. After terror, she
needed her other. To see an image holding her own, so together
they’d become. So one. So this is how it will be,
living out our times seeking mirrors in glass and pools, unable
to doubt reflections? Unable to see ourselves as alone
as we will be? Clutching at the slightest movement,
shadow, flicker, fragment, however unbreachable?
However hard whatever we are up against, however
when we crash to kiss it jars us through the hereafter?
Patricia Ranzoni was a child development specialist before falling down at 43 with the neuro-muscular tripper-upper, torsion dystonia. In the decades since, she has authored seven collections, including BEDDING VOWS Love Poems from Outback Maine (from which “Glimpses” comes) to be published this winter by North Country Press. Links: Poets & Writers Directory Ranzoni; Words from the Frontier (poetryinmaine.org)
© 2011, Patricia Smith Ranzoni
Halfway Down the Stairs 