Poetry By Denise Gilchrist

Warren LeMay CC




Life Goes On

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
 – Aerosmith, I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing

My ground floor apartment by Valley Forge Park
a dim galley kitchen, a slab porch
with candles and white lattice

I moved there in 1998 
when the penstemons bloomed--
medicated for panic and insomnia

dependent, not by choice
patched up for work
a tech temp job

I had a summer fling--
my shrink called: Outlaw Syndrome
something’s missing inside me

I didn’t care, 
he fed me--

good steak
moonlight over the junkyard
his crazy brown curls, 
Marlboro reds

country auction Friday nights
pulling up in the pick-up,
gray clouds, weed smoke
greeting his Amish friends

the factory pieces from the 1940s
cherry writing desk, nightstands 
were good, cheap, and mine

mid-century peanut butter glasses 
with flowers and common names
wake robin, Christmas rose

a ceramic pocket vase
flawless and white--
a gift from him

at night he’d watch me 
sleep pretty 
wired on something

keeping the monsters away--
the empty stomachache
soft blanket
on my suntanned skin.

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Denise Gilchrist is a poet from southeastern Pennsylvania. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Paterson Literary Review, Multiplicity Magazine, The Gentian Journal, Tiger Leaping Review, Floating Acorn Review, and other journals. When she's not writing, she can often be found in the garden, arranging flowers, or walking her border collie, Stella.
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