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Cathy A. Kodra
Toward Dark
Something drew a dark
line down the middle
of last summer. Insects
droned an insistent
dirge—acute attention
to each hour.
Once, I was beautiful.
Now an ugly scar
of womanhood gone awry
bisects the pale hill of this
stomach. My hair falls
short in mourning.
Each morning, I wake
reluctant, know answers
elude daylight. I soften
yeast, knead dough, kiss
my husband.
Time is spent. Life is loose
change. Then, there is only
dying. This is too much
for one woman to know.
Evening offers slight
repose; my careful heart
yearns toward dark.
Taking Flight
hugging her now
the embrace of a delicate bird
all hollow bones and feathery hair
my hands hardly know where
to put themselves
they hover, land on a spine
that ripples like pine bark
she folds her hands again and again
origami with veined, leathery skin
loosely-webbed, warped digits
gazing at them strangely she remarks
they don’t look right, do they?
they don’t even look like my hands
but her heart
a bright winter cardinal
caught in a cage of bowed, white bone
still beats its wings
hopeful, firm
©2010 by Cathy A. Kodra
Cathy A. Kodra, a native New Yorker, now lives, writes, and edits in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Her poems and short stories have appeared in or are pending publication in
Lynx Eye, Beginnings, Tar Wolf Review, Main Channel Voices, Birmingham Arts Journal,
New Millennium Writings, Roanoke Review, The Common Ground Review, The Medulla Review,
Still Crazy, Motif, and others. Cathy is a contributing editor for
New Millennium Writings, a member of the Board of Directors for the
Knoxville Writers' Guild, and a freelance literary and academic editor.
When not reading, writing, gardening, or cooking, she teaches classes
in adult education.
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