the way my father
gestured with a hand, pleaded
with fevered eyes, my father who wanted me
to lift the oxygen mask so he could speak,
wanted to apologize, confide,
explain away my mother’s spite,
wanted to touch my cheek, brush
my forehead with his lips, watch
my disappointment in him fade
the desperation in his eyes as he pointed to the mask,
the interval before I shook my head
how they come and come, those moments,
like crows at dusk—
dark shapes in a sky heavy with impending night,
filled with everything but silence
received a dual BA in French/Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley, and subsequently completed Master’s Degree Programs in the Performing Arts, and Psychology. She was a dancer in the San Francisco Bay Area prior to assuming the role of Leadership Development Trainer at the San Francisco headquarters of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She and her husband now reside in western Washington. Her work has been anthologized in How To Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope, and has appeared in Loch Raven, The Ekphrastic Review, MacQueen’s Quinterly, and Willawaw, among other journals.
