The uncertainty of pain
breeds hope until
loss
silences gratitude
for what was
and is now gone.
While prayer is grasped
and groped through,
grinding new hopes into
fragments of lesser loss,
the heart
twists
The Uncertainty of Pain
Category: poetry
The Waiting Room
In Death’s waiting room, I watch
The receptionist checking files, and
I tell her it’s not me. I don’t
Have an appointment
Yet, I hope.
This one here beside me,
Who is looking away and
Doesn’t know it’s time,
Who doesn’t want to go
Into the next room.
It’s not me, I tell her,
Not me yet, I hope.
Whipped Cream
My grandfather used to say he’d eat
Sawdust
If it had whipped cream
On it.
In my sawdust times
I chase the whipping
Cream
Of pleasing people.
Caregiver
“Take care of yourself” they said
But I didn’t know how
To be
That selfish.
“Like on a plane with a dependant” they said
“And the oxygen masks drop down,
Put yours on first;
That’s being responsible.”
Alone,
By the summer lake,
I feel the breeze.
Discordant Dance
Discordant Dance
Before I knew I was unhappy
The questions were unanswered.
There was no crisis,
Just the ongoingness
Of dizzying agony.
Without the busyness of costumes,
I became curious:
What shaped these blows?
Why did I accept being thrown away
And jerked back?
Why these steps
In pain
Over and over and over?
How can I stop the dance?
Is it my choice?
Where was this dark dance
Choreographed?
The mirror watched
As I twirled and twisted,
Watched impassively
Until, finally, a little light bled in.
I almost saw a question,
And twisted away.
I felt an answer trembling at my fingertips,
And closed my eyes.
I tripped, and caught myself
By staring at the mirror.
Again,
And again.
The mirror saw what I felt:
The dance was shifting, gentling, stretching.
And the questions began shaping
The new choreography.
Family Reunion
The photographs, strung like uneven pearls
across the years, challenge our memories,
declaring our connections, chosen moments posed
on cusps we didn’t recognize, and only now
see
https://soundcloud.com/joanvinallcox/familhyreunion
https://soundcloud.com/joanvinallcox/familhyreunionhttps://soundcloud.com/joanvinallcox/familhyreunion
Against Stereotyping
Beauty Everywhere- on the Streetcar
The older woman smiles at a baby;
the mother in a hijab smiles back.
The man with a tattoo sleeve
thanks the driver for his transfer.
The proper older lady in her white-trimmed navy blue dress
is gently guided by a dreadlocked younger woman.
The woman in the seat ahead
wears a butterfly-print shirt.
The teen in his black hoodie stands and gestures
the young mother into his seat.
Beauty everywhere.
***
Beauty Everywhere – on the Sidewalk
The young woman in ripped jeans walks
her bike through the intersection
Inside the coffeeshop an older man stops
reading to talk to a kid.
A woman in Tibetan dress walks
with a boy wearing a Spiderman Tee.
A little girl wearing a red polka-dot dress
waves at a streetcar driver.
A woman uses her phone to capture
a front yard flower for Instagram.
Beauty everywhere.
Our New Times
In this dark morning, I navigate
By electric green numbers
And red dots announcing
Civilization – but unaware, sleeping,
Perhaps more than vulnerable,
Lost, fearfully grasping poisonous
Barbarisms, eyes closed
To the common good.
Undiscovered Dreams
The weight of undiscovered dreams
in my belly
shifts and
the clock that isn’t there
lights up.
Outside of hope
or fear
or understanding,
the orphan
Is restless.
The blanket,
now too heavy,
covers the blurry force of
a kind of morning.
Anger & Grief
Anger
What is anger?
The conflicting stories
and silences?
The moments blocked?
What is anger?
The empty spaces
where I turn away,
wanting?
What is anger?
Is it this anticipation of loss:
the burnt-out remnants
of old miseries?
***
Grief
What is grief? Stumbling by haunted spaces
and turning away from your empty chair?
What is grief? The evening silences scratching
the scabs of your amputation from me?
Sackcloth and ashes pool behind my empty eyes
imprinting memories where your smile fades
Where is the garden you have abandoned?
What song is playing as you pull away?
Bleakly I walk and walk on muddied paths.
My stories now lost; their endings destroyed.
All sunsets are grey; all voices not yours.
There’s nothing I want and nowhere to be.
Then comes my scalding tears in their scarring tracks:
a slow stinging that solaces me in this deadened time.
Learning Living 