VIGIL

by

Mary Beth Hines

I tell my father to stop worrying
his blanket’s satin binding.

Ask him not to split the fretting seam.

Imagine the aftermath.

His bedside an eiderdown cloudscape.

One sneeze and a whirlwind upheaval.

Blown milkweed stars spinning,
flailing for home, a half-remembered breast.

Fitful filaments sparking the end-stage dark.

And I, no longer with words to safe
keep even one last winking light, recollect

a childhood field, his steady finger
mapping heaven in the amorphous sky.

Please, Father: stop. Point once more
as I’ve forgotten. Venus? Mars?

Mary Beth Hines is the author of Winter at a Summer House (Kelsay Books). Her prize-winning poetry and short prose appear in dozens of publications, most recently in Commonweal, The Louisville Review, and the Naugatuck River Review, where she was the first-place winner of their Narrative Poetry Contest. Her recent manuscripts were finalists for both Fool-for-Poetry and Comstock Review chapbook contests. An annual Assets for Artists writing resident at MASS MoCA, she lives in Massachusetts and enjoys wild swimming, hiking, friends, family, and travel. Visit her at www.marybethhines.com.