When you napped in my arms,
the plump of your lips bearing a slick of milk,
your infant breath sweet as nostalgia,
I didn’t consider the pulling away.
I knew, of course, it would happen
based on all the evidence: children I’d babysat
turning up at the Gas-&-Go clinking car keys,
kid sisters and brothers posing in mortarboards.
But the heart is stubborn in its holding to those
who live there, to time — guards them like a eucharist
in a gilded tabernacle, to be opened
only by blessed hands; denies what it knows
for as long as it can: that for leaving is the reason
you’ve come, you trust me to show you how —
cheer your leading part, let go of the bike
as you coast away on your own. As I stand
mutely by, heart an open sanctum, its door gaping
in a perpetual posture of welcome.
— from Whatever Measure of Light, Bernadette McBride. Kelsay Books/Aldrich Press, 2016
Bernadette McBride, author of four poetry collections, served as poetry editor for the Schuylkill Valley Journal. A Pennsylvania Poet Laureate for Bucks County, writing honors include the International Ray Bradbury Writing Award, second place winner, recognition in the U.K., Canada and on PRI’s The Writer’s Almanac, and three Pushcart Prize nominations.
Poet’s Corner is curated by Bucks County Poet Laureate Tom Mallouk and supported by a grant to the Bucks County Herald Foundation made possible by Marv and Dee Ann Woodall.
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