And Then – a poem by Jennifer Davis Michael

And Then

And then there are days
when the air is so mild,
the current so gentle,
it holds you, benevolent,
like a lover’s hand on your back,
a child’s trusting grasp.

It holds
the birthday candles,
the IV drip,
the pink slip,
the rogue cells,
the unmade bed,
the blackened eye.

It holds.
In this still moving,
everything is held.
It is weather, and more than weather.
And it is very good.

Jennifer Davis Michael is Professor and Chair of English at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Mezzo Cammin, Southern Poetry Review, Literary Mama, Switchgrass Review, and Cumberland River Review.