Tamara Madison
Tamara Madison grew up near the fault line in the California desert. Her poems have appeared in Chiron Review, the Worcester Review, A Year of Being Here, and many other print and online journals. Several of her poems have been featured on the Writers Almanac and the Lyric Life. She is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Wild Domestic and Moraine, and the chapbook The Belly Remembers, all published by Pearl Editions. Read more about her at tamaramadisonpoetry.com.
After a Grown Child’s Visit
Your jet – a needle – pulls a seam
across the sky; the stitching spreads
and softens to a scar. While you
head back to the rest of your life,
I sit here like a dummy in my car.
Where am I to go? And why go anywhere?
Watch the ants, the dashboard Buddha says.
They pass each other with a nod,
continue on their path’s inscrutable seam.
A pregnant mother knows
the most important thing, her road ahead
an obscure but certain track. I’m done
with traveling that hard and beaten path.
At home I find your bed the way you left it,
the pillow bears witness to the curve
of your head. You’re headed down your own
uncertain track, the seam between us
feels like a scar.
Sheila-Na-Gig online 