She doesn’t need to tell me
the cancer has returned.
Now on daily morphine
for the pain raking her bones,
she left the window open last night
as she tried to sleep, flat and still
on her back. She let the June breeze
pass right over her body.
Bad as I feel, she says,
if someone wants to come
and get me, let them.
Anyone could slice the screen
next to her bed and reach
to touch the gossamer hair
sprouting after last year’s chemo.
Who might take her away?
Instead of the thieves and gunshots
known to this neighborhood,
let it be some feathered creature
never before seen. Let its name
be whispered into her ear.
Let any other word
be stricken from this room
once she has been lifted
with unsinkable wings
over and above
our distant streets.

—
Micki Blenkush lives in St. Cloud MN and works as a social worker. She is a 2015 recipient of an emerging artist grant awarded by the Central MN Arts Board, funded by the McKnight Foundation. Her writing has also appeared in: Sequestrum, Naugatuck River Review, *82 Review, and elsewhere.

at the farm of a girl my age.
We were maybe nine or ten.
The length of her hair
galloped like a mane
as she splashed ahead into the water.
Cows drank from shallow banks.
The current was fast from rain
and pulled at our legs as we moved
around branches and stones.
We swept and fell outside the hours.
I don’t remember hot or cold
or the wet afterward.
We laughed at weakness
as we climbed from the water.
Our steps sought buoyance
upon return.

—
Micki Blenkush lives in St. Cloud MN and works as a social worker. She is a 2015 recipient of an emerging artist grant awarded by the Central MN Arts Board, funded by the McKnight Foundation. Her writing has also appeared in: Sequestrum, Naugatuck River Review, *82 Review, and elsewhere.