Today's poem is by Katharine Whitcomb

Animate Objects
       

Whose face changed.
        Whose shoulder worn a groove.
                Whose careful thought.

Whose cat a boy pharaoh on a blanket.
        Whose father in rehab wears torn pants.
                Whose mother no longer.

Whose solitude leaf-blown, matted with rain.
        Whose breeze carries whinnying from the fields.
                Whose chives bloom purple mandalas.

Whose offerings burn from long ago.
        Whose hope a foundling on the road.
                Whose ghosts haunt no house.

Whose knives dull.
        Whose secrets frayed hems.
                Whose heart a wretch awake.

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Copyright © 2024 Katharine Whitcomb All rights reserved
from Habitats
Poetry Northwest Editions
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission