Enclosures

My mother didn’t go outside for a year. Under the wide ceiling sky, each step was a climb up Mt. Everest. The bag on her walker carried all travel necessities: phone, pouch of unscented tissues, lipstick, maybe a bottle of water. Unlike me and unlike earlier, she didn’t hanker for the street or its tributaries. Sometimes a hint of longing for the drive to the horse farms, dusked deer on the hill, wild turkeys blocking the road. Even her small patio was beyond desire, a step-over sill too far. I am telling you because in my mother’s geranium hanging from my eave, bushtits are weaving a long cave nest of lint and lust.

Author of the article

Denise Bergman’s most recent poetry book is The Telling (Cervena Barva Press, 2014). A Woman in Pieces Crossed a Sea won the Patricia Clark Smith Poetry Prize and is forthcoming from West End Press in Spring 2014. Seeing Annie Sullivan, poems based on the early life of Helen Keller’s teacher (Cedar Hill Books), was translated into Braille and made into a Talking Book. Denise conceived and edited City River of Voices (West End Press), an anthology of urban poetry. Her poems have been widely published. An excerpt of her poem Red, is permanently installed as public art. Her poem A Building Away was a Split This Rock poem of the week. She was selected as a finalist for the 2014 Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Poetry Fellowship. www.denisebergman.com.