She held my head when
neck muscles were too weak
to raise my eyes for life.
When my unfocused ears
were wordless, she lullabied
me with her own verses.
When my wanting lips cried
hunger and fever and sleep,
she cooled me with her hands.
Now that I hold her as she
becomes the weakness I
once had been, babbling
incoherency, I try to recall her
with words written through
the life she gave to me−
and fail as all the syllables
that made her crumble in
the fractured cradle of my arms.
Author Bio:
Born in Pennsylvania, David Anthony Sam is the proud grandson of peasant immigrants from Poland and Syria. He lives now in Virginia with his wife and life partner, Linda, and in 2017 retired as president of Germanna Community College. Sam has four collections and was the featured poet in the Spring 2016 issue of The Hurricane Review and the Winter 2017 issue of Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry. His poetry has appeared in over 80 journals and publications. Sam’s chapbook Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson was the 2016 Grand Prize winner of GFT Press Chapbook Contest and his collection All Night over Bones received an Honorable Mention for the 2016 Homebound Poetry Prize. www.davidanthonysam.com
neck muscles were too weak
to raise my eyes for life.
When my unfocused ears
were wordless, she lullabied
me with her own verses.
When my wanting lips cried
hunger and fever and sleep,
she cooled me with her hands.
Now that I hold her as she
becomes the weakness I
once had been, babbling
incoherency, I try to recall her
with words written through
the life she gave to me−
and fail as all the syllables
that made her crumble in
the fractured cradle of my arms.
Author Bio:
Born in Pennsylvania, David Anthony Sam is the proud grandson of peasant immigrants from Poland and Syria. He lives now in Virginia with his wife and life partner, Linda, and in 2017 retired as president of Germanna Community College. Sam has four collections and was the featured poet in the Spring 2016 issue of The Hurricane Review and the Winter 2017 issue of Light: A Journal of Photography and Poetry. His poetry has appeared in over 80 journals and publications. Sam’s chapbook Finite to Fail: Poems after Dickinson was the 2016 Grand Prize winner of GFT Press Chapbook Contest and his collection All Night over Bones received an Honorable Mention for the 2016 Homebound Poetry Prize. www.davidanthonysam.com
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