If you were here and not
sleeping as I imagine you
in the wan green light
of your hospital room
we’d sit at my table where
I’d offer a catalogue of
daylilies with names
you’d appreciate:
Prairie Blue Eyes
Lilting Belle
Happy Enchantment
and hope the one you
select will open early
while you still have time
to see it bloom.
Tina Barry’s poems and short stories have appeared in Drunken Boat; Short, Fast and Deadly; Elimae; Exposure, an Anthology of Micro-fiction; and other literary magazines and anthologies. Mall Flower, her first book of poems and micro-fiction, was recently released from Big Table Publishing. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. After three decades of living in Brooklyn, NY, Barry now resides in a village in upstate New York. She tells herself the quiet is good for her writing.
A Quiet Courage 