Blend, clay, coffee
Gwendolyn MorganBrimmed coffee cup, teal flowers on red clay
the beans come from Guatemala
coffee, light roast
the poinsettias bloom on other holidays
white salt on white of egg
white of eye, pupil, retina
she struggles to find her way out of
glaucoma, macular degeneration
loss of vision and determination
loss of freedom and independence
metastatic cancer, mets blocking reason
COVID-19 pneumonia receding
she chooses a feeding tube, a j-peg
not an image from a photograph
yet a circular loop of plastic
that takes white artificial nutrition directly
to the stomach, the axis mundi
the center of the thought, the flower.
Now she begins to hold
the cup in her trembling hands.
Gwendolyn Morgan is a Pacific Northwest poet and artist who serves in interdisciplinary interfaith care in a medical center. She learned the names of birds and inherited horse hair paint brushes and wooden paint boxes from her grandmothers. The Clark County Poet Laureate 2018-2020 in Washington State, her third book of poetry, Before the Sun Rises, is a Nautilus Silver Winner in Poetry. As a multiracial family in a multispecies watershed, Gwendolyn and her spouse Judy A. Rose are committed to equity work and inclusion for all.
Originally published in Moss: Volume Six.
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