Out Walking

Out Walking

Mary R. Finnegan

My friend stops and leans her body
against a yew tree, its bark coarse
against her aged skin. My dogs are barking, says she.

The years have taken their portion
and I can no longer walk to the sea
without gasping. Her mouth open as a vowel,

we go on. I slow to her plod.
The steady rasp of her breathing, like a spade,
digs into the poor dirt of the north
where her soul, unborn, first breathed.

You can see, she says, that time has run roughshod
over me and the day is coming when I must wade
across two rivers and go forth
toward the stars of that other continent.

Still, the old blood of memory
thickens and growls,
holding me back on the banks of the Lethe,

scrupled, unclean, mouth closed as a consonant.

---

Mary R. Finnegan
Poet & Nurse

Mary has been published in PILGRIM: A Journal of Catholic Experience, American Journal of Nursing, Dead Housekeeping & Medical Literary Messenger

Photography by Michael Melber