Without Looking Poem by Patricia Goedicke

Without Looking

Rating: 3.0


Either at my friend's daughter's
sixteen-year-old body dumped
on the morgue slab, T-shirt
stuck fast to one ripped
breast I identified quick, and then
got out of there

or at the old gentleman
with tubes in the living room, spittle
stained in his wispy
beard, out of
the corner of my eye I hardly
notice it, how

could I, drink in hand
at five-thirty, at the least
sign of pain one of us always itches
to turn away, another turns
over in sleep, groans
O, we who are so lucky

just to be able to
ignore, go back
quick, to our books, to
have books, even, how
difficult it is to look
hard and head
on has not been said

often enough, if prayer
is an act of attention
even to dropped stitches, blood
dangling beneath the lines, the
poem? I said,
what prepares us for what
will never save us?


Anonymous submission.

COMMENTS OF THE POEM
Susan Williams 21 February 2016

Powerful. A soul in pain here. - - - - - what prepares us for what will never save us?

23 0 Reply
M Asim Nehal 21 February 2016

Nicely written poem, thanks for sharing.

0 0 Reply
Edward Kofi Louis 21 February 2016

Difficult it is to look! Thanks for sharing.

0 0 Reply
Robert Quilter 22 September 2008

Quite an opening stanza, that has lived with me the days, since i first read it. When you learn Ms.Goedicke battled cancer a lot of her life and the failing mental powers of her beloved second husband...read 'When Earth Begins to End' it puts a new light on some of the poetry.

4 0 Reply
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