Seven seconds 
between breaths 

his mottled blue hand in 
her smooth brown hand 
he crackles and rasps 

like he’s drowning 

Not waving but drowning from his care-home bed. He recites poems on his ninetieth birthday. She laughs. Says carers don’t “get” poems. She dabs a stray eyelash from his papery cheek. Origami paper swans. He folds and fashions their delicate beaks. A wren shivers and pecks frozen seeds from the feeder attached to his windowsill.

Twelve seconds 
between breaths 

he sings old-style songs 
she spoons out his medicine 
changes his sheets 

washes his bony back

She tells him stories about Brahma and Shiva. He paints a bindi like hers on his forehead. Eyes shining, they laugh.

Eighteen seconds 
between breaths 

she wears a sky-blue sari 
at her wedding. She shows 
him the photographs 

outside clouds gather 

He says you look beautiful but sad. He never married nor had children. His chest rises and falls rises and falls. The clouds form a shroud. When she loses her baby he gifts her an orchid. She wants to lie down next to his lanky gaunt body, not touching but breathing. He says loved ones come back as robins. She laughs. Says he’ll come back as a White-bellied heron.

He takes 
one shallow 
breath 

snow 
starts 

falling 

—Short-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #4

Jane Salmons

lives in Shropshire in the UK. Her latest poetry pamphlet is The Bridge (Offa’s Press, 2024), and her first poetry pamphlet, Enter GHOST, was released by dancing girl press in 2022. Also in 2022, Pindrop Press published her debut poetry collection, The Quiet Spy. She has poems and stories published in various journals and anthologies, including Atticus Review, The Dribble Drabble Review, The Ekphrastic Review, Ink Sweat & Tears, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Poetry Salzburg Review, and in the Ad Hoc Fiction anthologies Dandelion Years and Flash Fiction Festival Five.

A recipient of Arts Council England funding, her work has been shortlisted for the Bath Flash Fiction Award, and nominated for Best Microfiction, Best Small Fictions, and Best of the Net. Her story Miracle Grow won the Pokrass Prize at the Bath Flash Fiction Festival held in 2022. After nearly thirty years teaching, Jane now works part time as an international teacher trainer.

Author’s website: https://www.janesalmonspoetry.co.uk

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Girl Missing, poem and collage art by Jane Salmons in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 20, September 2023)

⚡ From Bucharest to Monte Carlo, ekphrastic microfiction by Salmons in MacQ-20 (September 2023)

⚡ The Weightlessness of Love, ekphrastic microfiction by Salmons in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 12, March 2022); nominated by MacQ for the Best Microfiction 2023 anthology