I pick you up my white-haired woman
creased and milkless
& toss you far into the future
where you will be spared
rage & resignation
the slow strangle of depression
& unbounded bottles of booze
I bend down to gentle you higher
to make sure you land at least
ten years away
Do you remember drawing hearts on our notebooks
with the initials of our latest love/practicing kissing
pillows so we would be sure to know/baby oil summers
on bikinied beaches/applications to medical school/
dreams of a Nobel Prize/for curing narcolepsy/
years slid past picked clean of purpose/ the world
swaying/illegible/steeped in remorse
Or should I put you in a witness
protection program to save you
from days of not eating not caring
if your bones glow in the dark
nights of pills for wingless dreams
swallowed by oblivion
I touch your cheek delicate as fairy floss
& give you several thousand dollars
to start again to begin a new life
without the cold-boned
burden of me
Claire Scott is an award winning poet who has received multiple Pushcart Prize nominations. Her work has appeared in the Atlanta Review, Bellevue Literary Review, New Ohio Review, Enizagam and The Healing Muse among others. Claire is the author of Waiting to be Called and Until I Couldn’t. She is the co-author of Unfolding in Light: A Sisters’ Journey in Photography and Poetry.
