END OF WINTER
Poems by Gloria Monaghan

End of Winter

recognize me if you can
you who were made before I was unmade (Canto VI)

I am in the third circle of rain
and there is also snow, which barely sits
in the brown bare branches outside the bedroom window.

There is no small bird craving food
and no sound of longing
there is only the sound of the wind

and the steel wire moving.
To let you in the door was to betray myself
to allow you to text me was a betrayal of the heart

even after lying and pretending to myself
that I enjoyed your hands on my body
like a winter bird just taking what I could.

I am not ashamed; but it is time to renegotiate
the way silence falls upon the heart at two in the morning
during the snowstorm with the wind hailing all corners of the mind.

Michigan

The Michigan clouds hang lower in the sky.
Queen Anne’s Lace borders the train tracks.
Linnets fly in between the green
in each small white pebble there is a story of lost love.

Everything changes when the rain sets in.

I had a dream about the forest;
there was a patch of blue petunias
bowing slightly in the wind in their veins a gentle shade of purple
the sunlight played on their faces.

A wooden arch over their heads- someone must have built it to honor them. 
There were also some rare butterflies in cages.
Was this a sanctuary for the heart?

What have we lost that we cannot attain again?

           
Witness

I feel like I’m 20 and I feel like I’m 60
I feel like Clint Eastwood riding into the red painted town
On his Appaloosa horse claiming to be not afraid
facing every possible danger
looking at the sun.

Has there been a brighter star than the unseen
under the slipper moon?

Today my heart was beating and
my fingers move slow like one who is held back,
like a moth feathered in loneliness.

author

About the Author
Gloria Monaghan is a Professor of Humanities at Wentworth Institute in Boston. Her first poetry chapbook, Flawed, (Finishing Line Press) was published in 2012.  Her second book, The Garden, (Flutter Press), came out in December 2015.  Her poetry has appeared in Blue Max Review, Fox Chase, Slope, Spoonful, and Aries, and 2River.  Her fiction has been published in Ezine. The Biscuit, and Tracks.  She is working on a book about the spectrum of masculinity, along with a collection of short stories.  She lives south of Boston with her two daughters.