Bonnie Proudfoot

Bonnie Proudfoot writes fiction, poetry, essays, and reviews. Her first novel, Goshen Road, (Swallow Press, 2020) was selected by the Women’s National Book Association for Great Group Reads, was Long-listed for the PEN/ Hemingway Award, and received the WCONA Book of the Year Award. Her poetry has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Her debut book of poems, Household Gods, was published by Sheila-Na-Gig Editions in 2022. She lives in Athens, Ohio.

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At your age, I found the blues

Does our skin hold memory
the way we held hands, looked
both ways, then moved together into

traffic? Who taught me to stop?
I saw the light change, I willed
our four legs to step together

off the curb. Cross at the green
not in between. What song
do you carry now, your blond curls

turned brown, your beard streaked in grey,
father to a little girl, what do you
guess she’ll carry? Rain, rain,

she sings, go away. At your age,
I found the blues, some truth
that seized my throat, hung close.

Even now, I’m holding
my own heart out to the light,
to the racing ongoing world

reckoning in 4/4 time with my own
stitched life, how to unbind the grief,
how much weight to bear. When you

took those first tottering steps,
when you reached for my hand
at the curb, it was all I could do

to hold you back, though off you went,
moving forward faster than ever. And
rain? Yes, there will be rain.