SHELTER

         Whenas in silks my Julia goes . . .

When with her step, slide-step, my Amelia finally went,

no one, bedside, even thought about her clothes:

those pilled, goodwill hand-me-downs she used 

to wear, which didn’t flow––nor even scintillate.

I thought about the soul’s betraying shelter:

her lame side limping, goose-fleshed & numb,

as her silent chugging intent lugged her spirit,

its brave vibration, over cobble and curb,

body propped by a cane & the crutching weight

of a silver colored brace which bent her leg back

hyperextending the slow lope of her gait

into an unwilling liquefaction of limb.

Others saw some shaded piece of air 

rise like a smoke ring: perfectly formed.

Tim Mayo’s poems and reviews have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Poetry International, Poet Lore, River Styx, Salamander, San Pedro River Review, Tar River Poetry, Web Del Sol Review, Verse Daily, and The Writer’s Almanac. His first full-length collection, The Kingdom of Possibilities, was published by Mayapple Press in 2009. He has a second volume of poems, Thesaurus of Separation, forthcoming from Phoenicia Publishing in 2016.