Karen Bonaudi Open Door

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Salt-slicked feathers fan in two mirrored curves, their sweeping grace arrested, sand spattered across sightless eyes, stilled corpse a mockery of flight.

The ball, abandoned, bobs in the low tumble where sea teases shore.

All I (once) believed buried, nothing is hidden now. CIRQUE

Karen Bonaudi

Open Door

The empty room, the door wide open like a wound, all the old signals missing: ajar--I’m coming back closed--I’m in for the night--

empty now except for the extension cord lying on the carpet, all the abstracts in a pile on the floor.

Now you are gone and doing, just doing. I see you forever standing on the top of a mountain like the poster I brought you once

from Colorado. Everything here still, just the dog’s nose following the top of my pen as it moves across the page.

Sometimes I rise early just to catch the dawn, just to catch that common miracle that used to light your face, your faint smile of wonder and of knowing. I will be your blanket in winter, in summer, your shade. I am the warning that whispers to you of trouble around the bend, the pen you use to write

across your page. You will smile in morning sun, drink tea and spread memory of me like strawberry jam across your toast.

Pink Nail Patch Gary Thomas