My mother’s hands
at half my age
look old when I am three.

Now tucking my child in bed
I whisper — two more minutes —
and she — three! — and then —
(sotto voce) or maybe never …

That would be nice, I agree.
Never; never leaving.

But as we wane
the full moon mocks
us all the way
till morning.

Michele Seminara

 

Michele Seminara is a poet and Managing Editor of online creative arts journal Verity La. Her first poetry collection, Engraft, was published by Island Press in 2016. She has published two chapbooks, Scar to Scar (with Robbie Coburn, PressPress 2016), and HUSH (Blank Rune Press 2017).

© 2018