Member-only story
Survivors
a poem about surviving
The voices of those who have survived break bone fever
drift over the river all night. They speak slowly so there’ll be no
misunderstanding. Everyone knows by morning there still
won’t be reconciliation, no agreement found,
like a stone by the side of the road.
You must think this is what I wanted, this impossible scenario
of strangers, our lives as separate as two banks divided by water.
Sometimes I imagine this is all an illusion, some dream
not yet dissolved, that I have only to pass my hand across the glass
to see everything clearly again. But it’s too late now
for the faith healer. The spirit has turned away, deaf
to the spill of bones and beads beckoning it into the light.
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Copyright 2009 Marguerite Floyd all rights reserved
