Fragments
Grief invades
the thin columns of days. A phone
rings. Tree bark flakes
away. I become
salt on tongue, raw
copper wire, unfinished
basket. To keep
from drowning, I walk
a ledge beside icy sea. Blue-black
water gleams. Layers
of leaves
line the drive. Needles
drip from pines. I salvage
an old video. Faces split apart. I long
to lever them whole again.
Judy Kaber is the author of three chapbooks, most recently A Pandemic Alphabet. Besides appearing previously in Lunch Ticket, her poems have appeared in journals such as Poet Lore, december, Hunger Mountain, and Spillway. She won the 2021 and 2023 Maine Poetry Contest and is a past poet laureate of Belfast, Maine.
