Issue Twenty-Two - Summer 2013

Memento Mori

By Kathleen Holliday

After great pain, a formal feeling comes. —Emily Dickinson

It is time for putting away – and yet,
An aura lingers over a photograph,
A card or two.

Of himself, there is hardly a sign;
Red roses in the vase blacken
And drop to the floor as if to say:
Don’t expect a miracle.

Were I able to address him
Only Latin words would fall
Unfurling from my mouth
Like the penitent in a medieval frieze
For whom a saint is forever interceding.

Copyright Holliday 2013

Kathleen Holliday lives on an island in the Salish Sea. Her poems have appeared in The Bellingham Review, The Blue Nib Literary Magazine, Cathexis Northwest Press, New Ohio Review, Nimrod International Journal, Poet Lore, Poetry Super Highway, SHARK REEF, The Write Launch and other journals. She is a graduate of Augsburg University, Minneapolis, MN. Her first chapbook, Putting My Ash on the Line, was published by Finishing Line Press, 2020; her second, Boatman, Pass By, by Finishing Line Press, 2023.

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