Life-Cycle of the Cry
She cried like a baby they say
as though grief should grow up
fold tears to one neat tuck
of the handkerchief.
A parlour assistant, professionally grave, mouths
I’m sorry
draws navy velvet matinee curtains
and presents
the shock of the familiar –
your face with you not in it
chill to the touch.
Much of you was silence.
Now you burrow into its inky balm at last
and I squall like a slapped infant
testing new lungs.
Kathryn Alderman was an actor before starting a family. She won Cannon Poets’ Sonnet or Not (2012) and is published online and print including: Amaryllis, The Cannon’s Mouth, Eye Flash Poetry Journal, I Am Not a Silent Poet. She Co-Chairs Gloucestershire Writers’ Network.
