Deathbed Phenomena

The stopped clock a coincidence.
The sparrowed windowsill, the doves’
startling ascent, cloud escalation—
no extraordinary event. The fallen
photograph, cracked frame, the sudden
shift in weather—never any sign.

Beyond sight, music from a shorted radio;
the scent of fresh-cut flowers unstuck
from long-shut drawers. Hallucination:
coppered filament of memory, fixation,
unpent imagination. Don’t be afraid.
If future visitations, call them dreams;
if some recurrent cardinal, call it
by the name of your beloved dead.

Incomplete Abecedarian at the End of the Once World

As he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía
                       was to remember that distant afternoon when his father
                       took him to discover ice.
                                                -- Gabriel García Marquez 100 Years of Solitude 

At the end of the once world: antidepressants,       
aspirin, band-aids, batteries, bleach; 

the remnant hum of bees;      
faint scars of contrails;          

cliffs of days stacked up uncalendared;        
dandelions, evergreens, fatigue...

The fields laced in early morning fog        
or sunk in gloaming;             

hope ticking its decay like any isotope.        

There is a wrong time to reread García Marquez;    
a stalk of jade unjoins, knifes into bloom.    

I keep a list of useless marvels:
mushrooms, melancholies, moons, 

near-misses; an orrery of planets
pinned in place and wound to spinning...

The quiet regrets its empty
sun-stunned rooms

Violeta Garcia-Mendoza is a Spanish-American poet, writer, and photographer. She is a member of Carlow University’s Madwomen in the Attic Writing Workshops and a reader for Split Rock Review/Press. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has recently appeared or is forthcoming in a variety of journals, including Peatsmoke, Moist Poetry, West Trestle Review, Faultine, Rogue Agent, and Saint Katherine Review. Violeta lives with her family in Western Pennsylvania, on a suburban third of an acre she planned and planted into a Certified Wildlife Habitat. You can find her online at https://www.violetagarciamendoza.com and on IG @violeta.garcia.mendoza and Twitter @VioletaGMpoet.

Published April 11 2022