Acknowledgements: Sunday Obits, ER Blues, The Slow Unwind, and Another War, Again all were previously published in Mudlark. Maybe was published in O:JA & L. Cover image: Painting by Shaun McDowell, “A Table Before Me”, 2025.
SUNDAY OBITS
Forty souls today
I look at each of you
From Bartholdi, through Matthews
To Zischla. I greet you
Look into your eyes
As you all gaze back at us
Oh, you with the red bow tie
And you with your good pearls
The yellow cat held up, the fine
Leather jacket, a raised martini
All that colors and flavors our days
After a long illness, we know
What that means, don’t we
You and you, some so young
And then you, that place
Behind you, lush and green
I know that place, our beloved
Botanical garden, dear forty
People, I see you, I name you
Won’t be that long, I’ll be
Joining you, but now
Time to close the paper,
Remembering to breathe.
ER BLUES
Someone’s been shot, someone’s OD’d
That guy fell, that dame, her heart
Oooh, that guy tried to bring in his guns
Police in front of room 14, room 23
We’re waiting for your test, for a room
Waiting room stuffed with all of us scared
lonely, angry, helpless souls, all waiting
For a nurse to call a name, a doc to appear
Walking out for water, grabbing glimpses
of the vast, mysterious life here, a long day
Your wheelchair squeaks, your phone bleeps
It wasn’t supposed to be like this, was it
Obviously, it was, we hadn’t read the signs
Watched the stars, turned the right card over
Here we are, all day, and I’ll drive you home
Tonight, and we’ll still be the lucky ones.
THE SLOW UNWIND
Derby day, I had flown in from away and we two
Watched on the kitchen tv, after Ma stomped off,
Saying mind him till I’m home, first hint I got
And then the chestnut colt crossed the finish line
As I noted his shoulder set, hip angle, reminding
Me of another big red colt we’d known.
He grunted, not pro or con, not the old days
Declamation, explanation, stories, laughter,
Just a who gives a shit grunt, and I got the whiff
Him losing that mind, and was ignorant.
What happens, losing a mind, as if it goes elsewhere,
Hides out, gone awol, borrowed, run away, but no,
That diminution starting up, slow then faster,
Unraveling his keen, sharp brain, as we
Watched, helpless, inside, outside, his rage, ours,
And years later, pawing through memories,
Eager to be lit up again by that bright, gone glow.
MAYBE
Could be the seagull on the grocery shop trash bin
Or that dame on the bike almost running me over
Possibly the flower seller asking this one, that one
Maybe how the guy waved me to cross the street
Definitely the free sample at Sees’ Chocolate store
Blessed the Japanese shop guy who had what I needed
Likewise the stationery store for next year’s calendar
But certainly, heading back, the ambulance, the cop car
There sat the seagull right where I left him
Old woman, someone said, knocked down, robbed, hit
Of course, the kids ran, driven away, gone in a flash
And then her blood on the sidewalk, the crumpled hat
Maybe the fog rolling in, evening wind, long walk home
Possibly the door key catching, fear, sigh, brief truce
UNCLE
Grown-up party at their house, his wife,
number two, shakes hands. He’s trying
to lay on the weasel-y charm. Grandma,
Gramps in another room, I wander,
looking at pictures, and then he’s there,
his hand around, trying for over, between,
around, the hiss, the chuckle, and I run
room to room, hallways, doors opening
to nothing, voice in my head says,
Hey, dummy, welcome to life, come on in.
Years later, on his deathbed, he tells
an old pal how he’d done her in,
my aunt, his first wife, the little pretty one,
just as everyone suspected. Hooked on
uppers, downers, booze, and never eating,
she always hurt. Late to work, again
he hauled out the med bag, as she
begged again for something to ease the pain,
for those vitamins, as he called them,
filling the syringe, and this time
giving her the extra dose, and she was
gone. He hurried off to work, leaving
their toddler sucking her thumb,
mewling and snuffling on the floor.
I carry my beautiful aunt, her scrawny,
drugged, miserable little self everywhere I go.
She fits neatly into any pocket, quite small,
jagged, jostling against me as I walk,
and when I’m gone, she’s gone again.
ANOTHER WAR, AGAIN
One leans across, questioning how can you
Think that, another says how could they do
this thing, that act, yet another sits back
Listening, herding random thoughts
Tonal shifts, voices at table, this quiet room
in a cafe, everyone stirring bad coffee, immersed
In the ongoing war, then this new one
Voices arguing, asking who’s reading what
Someone’s waiting for eggs, another for bacon
Everyone calibrating loss from far away
War time, always and everlasting, old people
Sip bad coffee, flooded with images
This world we never grasped, slipping
Further away. The scone is stale, the sun
Too hot, we can’t name this shifting language
Grey bird on the magnolia, and above
The loud jets fly way too low, and outside
Sirens slice through the morning. This life.
Helen Wickes is the author of four books of poetry: In Search of Landscape, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2007; Moon over Zabriskie and Dowser’s Apprentice, both from Glass Lyre Press, 2014; World as You Left It, Sixteen Rivers Press, 2015. All six poems published in this article are from an unpublished manuscript titled “Transit of Mercury”. She grew up on a farm in Pennsylvania, has lived in Oakland, California for many years, and used to work as a psychotherapist. She is a member of Sixteen Rivers Press, which has recently released the anthology America, I Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience.
