Marjorie Moorhead
In Silence
after Ilya Kaminsky
How is it I can hear a neighbor’s lawnmower, buzzing like a fly,
watch the sunlight from my front room windows,
see the breeze in leaves…
How is it I can breathe with ease,
when a small body washes up on a shore,
alone?
(forgive me) I take in the sunlight.
I block out the body (forgive me).
I eat my lunch, in silence.
Marjorie Moorhead is the author of Survival: Trees, Tides, Song (Finishing Line Press, 2019) and Survival Part 2: Trees, Birds, Ocean, Bees (Duck Lake Books, 2020). Recent poems have appeared in Verse-Virtual, Amethyst Journal, and Sheila-Na-Gig, among other journals. Her poems have also appeared in several anthologies, including Planet in Peril (Fly on the Wall, 2019), edited by Isabelle Kenyon, and From The Ashes (Animal Heart, 2019), edited by Amanda McLeod and Mela Blust. An AIDS survivor and mother, Moorhead found a voice in poetry. Her work speaks of environment, survival, attention to the “every day,” and how we treat each other. She writes from the NH/VT border.
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