Red Poppy

It wasn’t the growth of
baby’s breath that brought
me back to my childhood
home, but the brokennesss
of a young woman trapped
inside the room she grew
up in who, with a scrap of
paper and pen, wrote a brief
will at two a.m., day by day
too ill to move from her bed,
her love for God gone,
wanting to give herself up
to death which presses itself
so tightly to her chest. Above
her head a crack in the window
and, every night, her drunken
mother’s tongue penetrating
the walls. All but a tiny miracle
saved her, and her spirit flew
away. I see her now, in a mirror:
her eyes, the curve of her lips,
open like a red poppy after
a morning rain.

Bobbi Sinha-Morey‘s poetry has appeared in a wide variety of places such as Plainsongs, Pirene’s Fountain, The Wayfarer, Helix Magazine, Miller’s Pond, and Old Red Kimono. Her books of poetry are available on Amazon.com, and her work has been nominated for Best of the Net.