Poetry by Clara Howell

     Danny Navarro CC




A Poetic Dirge

If I were to wrap a blindfold
around my eyes, if only for a moment,
I’d picture your hands as a shield. 
One where memories twinkle 
like cosmic dust between the curtains of your fingers.

Sometimes I see you 
sucking down a mocha shake
in the food court at Lloyd.

Sometimes I see you 
in the arcade shop
cast away by black shadows.

Sometimes I see you 
holding my hand, heel to toe 
and again and again
balancing on stacks of plywood. 

Sometimes I see you
slumped against my ikea couch
soul sinking into an opiate bliss.

Sometimes I see you
handing the woman with no teeth
a Ziplock sealed with whispers.

Sometimes I see wisps of a baby girl, 
toddler, then baby again. Flickers of our faces 
stacked like piles of collectable cars.

Sometimes I don’t see you at all. 

Not when I was 6, running toward the opposite goal
or at the park, hitting a tennis ball 
against the wall against the wall.

Not when I lost my first tooth
or when the dead came 
for your son.

Not in the hospital room when 
I watched his world turn over and over,
his globe spinning. No one
to pinpoint where exactly
he would rise again.

I didn’t see you when Albert died.
I didn’t see you when grandma’s lungs failed.
I didn’t see you when another man claimed Dad,
if only for a moment. Mom will walk
me down the aisle. 

Sometimes when I remember
sitting on a bench in Pioneer Square
eyes resting on 90s checkered leggings,
your green sunglasses nestled in my hair
I get angry.

The empty spaces you left behind
were 25 years of memories in the making
and who can remember a lifetime?

You stole that from me.

For years I thought memories 
were imperative pieces to a puzzle, 
where tattered corners and misplaced 
shapes of the past were needed
to make me whole.

Maybe one day
I’ll untangle the dream-drugged thorns,
dust off the ashes and open my lid
to see you within me
Write a poem lovegirl.

And when remembering dusts off 
pieces of you buried 
like bones in my toy chest, 
I’ll wait until the smoke uncoils
from your maw, for the ashes 
to sprinkle across the page 
like stardust.

Then, I’ll remove your hands
as my blindfold and wear your skeleton 
around like a necklace,
a lament for the dead, 
A Poem For My Father. 

​



Incomplete

                         I

Father dreamt he was shot. 
Pistol pointed, a bullet through
his throat. My finger wrapped 
around the trigger. Chin to the wind 

& stop signs in five languages 
& braille. Fingertips sticky 
on asphalt like wax. Tender 
barricades & look at the pigeons.

In his gnarled slumber, said I was 7,
but woke up to 6. Tangled in rehab
& dreading his ghosts, he grabbed 
his pen & wrote:

                       1

When I mail this 
I will have been in here
for 10 days.  

                       2

Chapters two & three are coming.
They’re going through a serious rewrite.
I will mail them Tuesday morning, until then.

                       3 

I will mail more of the story 
next Tuesday, until then
I am loving you always.

                      II

Another round of Narcan 
& he’s choking on ash. 
Smoke seeping from the barrel
of his forgotten Camels. 
For years we dressed for his funeral.
Black shadow dragging, waiting. 
Let the second half of sentences sweat 
down the page. Half-written letters age.

His pen ticking backward like a 
grandfather clock. Periods become
potholes, question marks a wrong turn.
Crumpled reminders I folded & saved.

I draw the letters from a soft satin box.
Our unfinished stories half awake 
& waiting. I connect the 3, cross them out 
& tell him,  I’ll rewrite.

​



Clara Howell is a poet born and raised in the Pacific Northwest. Clara finds poetry as an opportunity to connect the ordinary with the extraordinary by putting her most honest and raw experiences on the page. Clara's work has been previously published in Cathexis Northwest Press, Route 7 Review and Pacific Review.