A Long Marriage Submits to His Parkinson’s Forecast
The current takes us.
Sea-pulled waters of the Great Lakes
pass through shallow Lake St. Claire, flow
past Belle Isle, narrow in the straits
to become a silver river.
On the horizon, clouds mound
into rounded peaks,
a range of rolling lavender—for Detroit flatlanders
the closest we come
to the myth of mountains.
In my childhood,
a cloudless day was the wished for day—
blue monotony a kind of happy-ever-after.
In domino alignment, clouds amplify.
Alabaster monoliths
complicate the sky—great fisted densities
clinch and bellow. Periwinkle blue morphs
to bruised turquoise,
the intense indigo of weighted thunderheads
until swaths of rain lash the water.
Trees rip apart; a water-spout upends
someone else’s small craft.
The storm—unremitting.
In the distance, a cloud allows
a knife edge of radiance.
Melinda LePere holds an MFA from Vermont College and is a member of Springfed Arts and Detroit Working Writers. Her chapbook, Upstairs Listening, was chosen in 2023 for publication by Michigan Writers. She has been published in numerous journals including Belt, Patterson Review, The MacGuffin, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Juked, The Collagist, Exposed Bone and was nominated for a Pushcart. As a Detroit elementary school teacher, she partnered with InsideOut poetry in the school’s program and facilitated an annual Family Poetry Night.