Issue Forty-Three - Winter 2024

The Dream in which Mom Says Just Before Dying, Blink and You Will Miss Me

by David A. Goodrum

I believe you’re still asleep
in the next room. Soon you will

shake me awake to deliver
the news to neighbors.

I can’t shut my eyes; I can’t
keep myself from trying.

For days I am in a stare-down
with blank walls, pictures

removed though their shadows
remain, shuttered windows, curtains

closed, daylight and moonlight
blocked. No chance of stopping

the tornado’s wail sinking and rising
as it wavers; the roof tiles clatter,

pelted by gusts, hail, rain; the prayer plants’
folding in nocturnal devotions; the crests

and troughs of grief, the moment-
to-moment tides of living without you.

Copyright Goodrum 2024

David A. Goodrum , writer/photographer, lives in Corvallis, Oregon. His chapbook, Sparse Poetica, is due in late 2023, and a book, Vitals and Other Signs of Life, is due in mid 2024. His poems are forthcoming or have been published in Tar River Poetry, The Inflectionist Review, Passengers Journal, Scapegoat Review, Triggerfish Critical Review, among others. Additional work (poetry and photography) can be viewed at www.davidgoodrum.com.

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