Sinking

right now everything in me is sinking in you your need like heavy water pulling me deeper to depths where even I can't swim; consider this when you cry for help at some point the lifeguard in me is helpless with words you could very easily drown me too won't you ever learn to swim Heather Reed 2005

Bitter Awareness

a woman bends
over her child
to place a kiss

on sweet, dark hair;
sweaty with work
and thinking

her lips taste
the salty link
to past and future
mothers and daughters

right now,
this is everything;
and all she can attend to

not knowing
how many tomorrows,
if any, remain, she has no time
for pleasant exchange;
conversation meaningless,
vague, and vapid

no words big enough
to explain the way she feels

impatient fear eats at her
like the poison within -
that arrived suddenly
like winter darkness,
in spite of taking care,
being thoughtful,
healthy and whole

hundreds of pink ribbons
strangle her, like tiny ropes
tightening about her heart

bitterly aware,
her mantra repeats,
endless and uncontrolled
cut it out, cut it off

Heather Reed 2005

Homeless 1979

Towels draped inner windows;
the beige four-door of indistinct model
straddled two spaces in the Sears lot
emptied and dirtied from another day's big spending

before urban legends, she was a rumor;
illegible as wavy cursive
penciled on wrinkled paper
smudged - neglected - discarded

12:30 am, coldly autumn;
the fable, reality up-close

through windows I tried to see her;
huddled, folded into corners
of a cluttered back seat

towels as walls, bench seat as sofa;
an aching stomach and layered coats
were meals remembered;
embraces imagined

tears gripped my throat;
icy rain tore at
her cracked windshield
of ragged journey

pierced and paralyzed,
I understood nothing;
just the hopeless sadness
of seeing her,
homeless and hungry

Hutchinson, Kansas 1979