Poetry by Karla Linn Merrifield

                 ​Nicolas Henderson CC




​Handful of Years 


A friend dies.
A colleague dies. 
Another one. 
Another one’s wife. 
A second friend dies
(pistol-shot suicide). 
Leonard Cohen dies. 
(America goes on life support). 
My husband dies. 
Ashbury dies. 
Now Roth, now Wolfe.
Now Ferlinghetti.

To let go in increments 
(as in the teaspoon-measuring 
of bonedusty ashes scattered 
in oceans, lakes and seas), 
we tumble down rabbit holes
of nostalgia wherein lies our sense 
of encroaching diminishment,
impending several fadings, 
looming failings—but--

No more obituaries, please. 
Not right now. Not yet. 
Let your body quake alive 
as I allow mine to do, now, now,

swimming mornings against the tide.

​


​Karla Linn Merrifield has had 800+ poems appear in dozens of journals and anthologies. She has 14 books to her credit. Following her 2018 Psyche’s Scroll (Poetry Box Select) is the 2019 full-length book Athabaskan Fractal: Poems of the Far North from Cirque Press. She is currently at work on a poetry collection, My Body the Guitar, inspired by famous guitarists and their guitars; the book is slated to be published in December 2021 by Before Your Quiet Eyes Publications Holograph Series (Rochester, NY).