A Poem of Strong Wishes

I live at the end of the world
free to come and go at will,
the shore the only thing binding me

and the last time I saw Grandmother
she said such funny things –
over and over she wonders

why I left Kentucky;
another time she says
this place is such a mess

over and over,
until I lay hands on her bird bones
and whisper

sshh
the way you do to the wind
or a very small child,

and then I say Gran, it’s beautiful,
everything is beautiful.
I wish and whisper in her spun-floss hair

as fine as any dandelion
You can go now
if you want.

Flying back to the shore
I think that none of us are free
bound as we are

by promises outliving us all,
the grasping at things
pulling us in and out of worlds.

First appeared in A Wild Region (Moon Tide Press).