There Destiny Twirling | Judy DeCroce & Antoni Ooto

On the Way There

In sunlight with a backward wave,
I cross the street I know so well.

Leaving gossip
back there on our shared stoop…
continuing the ordinary, my every day,
and in five steps…I disappear.

~

Joan, you left your face in that mirror—
a warm scent, a draft.

Anyway, it didn’t seem the last time until
his pickup plowed through that summer morning—
plowed through sunshine, sparkle…into you.

Time slipped away, though hope was possible,
and time stayed closed against his roar.

Now in this quieter year, answers don't come,
but your absence does.

What’s left?
Only memories that wrap themselves away
       when it shouldn’t have been the last time.

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Destiny

Above my chair pigeons shuffle,
ticking the skylights.

In that reel, birds stare
into an examining room.

My wait is usual, routine,
each time longer.

And fear, full of imagination,
begins to cloud my mind.

life consumes time
time consumes life

This child will be examined
but not explained—
that is for adults.

Answers are being searched for
and I’m only the subject
left to watch pigeons.

and finally, an unsettling quiet—
an intersection where chance meets destiny
in a room at the edge of summer

they’ll try…again,
I’ll wait—worry,
never imagining
50 years later…
                      she would be me.

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Some Skirts are Made for Twirling

for Mom

and she hummed her dance
in canvas sneakers 

a gyroscope of movement
measured steps
efficient—true

basement, attic, back yard,
chores always in play

filling the ever-possible days of “hunky-dory”
chasing the task, moving along;

cooking, shopping,
years of nursing,
all while humming,

then confusion cut in
and she couldn’t remember those practiced steps,
stumbling till the dance was over.

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Collaborative Poems ©2022 Judy DeCroce and Antoni Ooto
All rights reserved

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