Today's poem is by Marjorie Maddox

Self-portrait After Memory
       

After as in submerged,
as in out-of-nowhere wave
of vision whooshing back the past
she thought she'd drowned from.

And after as in rising up,
the wet's crescendo, the bright
rays across sand S.O.S-ing a story
she knew she knew, keeps knowing.

And there were dangers
and sun, and someone screaming
for popsicles, and the gulls swooping
her full name: first and last.

And after becomes tense,
as in is, as in continuing to be
in this ever after of now, for now,
where she recognizes your own

aging hand held out to her
like this, and she takes it,
begins in her steady voice
to tell her story of after.

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Copyright © 2023 Marjorie Maddox All rights reserved
from Twelve Mile Review
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission