Jane’s Annual Poems, 1973-2021

1974

CANCER MORNING NEW YEAR, 1974

*Finnish for “Happy New Year”

moths have always fluttered there
in your throat, father, as you lay
skin outlining your skullbones
slack-mouthed, me passing through your bedroom
my lips just-kissed
 
on your back snoring always sleeping
like a bald wraith
 
when I kissed you goodbye
your wheelchair bumped the chest
where your underwear and Mother’s
 
rested in the same drawers clean as always
your frail body always stolidly muscled
leaned up and your whitened whiskers stabbed
my young cheek bent there and I sent the kids
to kiss you too, and their father
 
“Goodbye we’re leaving, Onnelista Uutavuota.”*
In freezing dark winter morning of This Is It
the sisters and mother to shoo
the owl I saw blinking on your headboard
the beetles I felt crawling on my face.