Impersonating Stillness by Kathleen McGookey

Photo by Ron Porter via Pixabay

Travel into the future and you’ll see the hero is a mother. Ghosts tug her clothes and hands, and trail behind her, scuffing their shoes; they run so far ahead, they grow smaller and smaller until she can cover them with her thumb. She knows all their tricks. She pulls a tray from the oven and extinguishes the flames in the sink, her antique ring, cut red glass with a gilded back, weathering those changes. Each morning, she picks one good thing—a fur blanket, a warm cup of coffee with cream, a gray cat curled and sleeping in its basket—and holds it in her mind, like a jewel, all day. Sometimes she has to breathe and lead her mind back to it. Can she bear the heavy clouds hovering near the horizon, impersonating stillness, for yet another day? For years, she paints and paints, always a small blurry figure walking away. 

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Kathleen McGookey’s most recent book is Paper Sky (Press 53). Her work has appeared in journals including Copper Nickel, December, Epoch, Field, The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts, On the Seawall, Poetry East, Prairie Schooner, Ploughshares, The Southern Review, and Willow Springs. It has also been featured on American Life in Poetry, Poetry Daily, SWWIM Every Day, and Verse Daily. She lives in Middleville, Michigan.