by Judith Janoo
In My Hands
In my hands, lifelines, near palm-width
picking up the phone
to tell a friend I’m sorry
I’m not a phone person. I’ll call,
but not often. I’ve tried.
A pencil, strips of notepaper,
return envelopes I won’t return,
lists of those I need
to ring up, working up
to the phone’s heavy weight,
checking off one name
each day.
In my hands the weight
of not living up
to the outgoing need
of me.
In my hands polished glass,
green, icy-blue,
the ocean smoothed
of edges jagged as mine.
In my hands, sea water,
until it slips between my fingers,
when I reach down for more
of what I have not worked for,
wading in tide pools,
in deepening water
miles from a phone,
from the call
about my mother,
knowing she’d never again
comb the wet sand,
carry driftwood home
to put on the shelf
above the only phone we had.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judith Janoo has won the Soul-Making Keats Award, the Vermont Award for Continued Excellence in Writing, and the Anita McAndrews Award for human rights poetry. Her poetry has appeared in Pedestal Magazine, Sow’s Ear, The Fish Anthology, The Main Street Rag, Evening Street Review, and The Mountain Troubadour. Her chapbook, After Effects, was published in 2019.