Marjorie Moorhead
Portal
There’s a bruise in the crook
of my arm
a portal
the thinnest skin
access
to my heart
a bruise, where the needle went in
and prodded
trying to get blood to flow
a letting (blood letting)
necessary to check
and see how I am doing.
The bruise
a yin-yang now of purple and yellow
takes me back
The day I saw them on your arm,
grayish black a whole row
“tracks” the mark of a journey
a descent
a road to the end
an escape route
when you stepped on that path
there was no leaving it
you managed to stray for awhile
you stayed
But then,
you left
for good.
—Submitted on 09/27/2020
Marjorie Moorhead is the author of the chapbooks Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press 2019), and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books 2020). Her poems have appeared in Sheila-Na-Gig, Porter House Review, Verse-Virtual, Rising Phoenix Review, Amethyst Review, and other journals, as well as in several anthologies, including most recently Covid Spring (Hobblebush Books, 2020).
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