Three Poems by Patricia L. Goodman

Poem to Myself

Don't lament this old photograph --

you, ten years old,

in your homemade polka-dot

swimsuit. It’s your first time at the beach.

You’re trying

to please your mother

as you over-react to waves. Take a lesson

from the flock of goldfinches

playing musical perches

on your feeders—

unconcerned their winter gold is dull.

And look,

despite a swollen ankle, that deer
seems serene

as she searches for acorns beneath the snow.

And in that gaggle of geese up there,

the one missing tail feathers

still honks its way home.

When Winter Stayed

The geese look

like decoys, asleep

on the ice, not praying,

yet all facing west. You say

it is because

they are heading the wind.

I have other questions,

but I watch a hawk

land in a bare maple,

and when I turn

you are gone.

All That Remains

In startling desiccation,

           he lies

       beneath a pink peony

in my garden,

           no smell of death,

       no weight in my hands,

           only bones

and feathers,

black starling wings

           extended stiffly,

       dark feet

clasping emptiness,

       beak crookedly agape

from the impact

           that broke his neck.

Above him,

           the window

        to my studio,

cruel cause

           of a simple error,

real reason

           to question

        why we create

such fatal illusions,

           how man fits

        in this world.

Patricia L. Goodman is a widowed mother and grandmother, a graduate of Wells College with a degree in Biology and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Her career involved breeding and training horses with her orthodontist husband on their farm in Chadds Ford, PA. She has had poems published in the likes of Aries, The Broadkill Review, Sugar Mule, Requiem Magazine, Jellyfish Whispers, Fox Chase Review; Mistletoe Madness , Storm Cycle, Poised in Flight(all from Kind of a Hurricane Press)On Our Own (Silver Boomer Books) and The Widow’s Handbook. Her first book, Closer to the Ground was a finalist in the 2014 Dogfish Head Poetry Competition and she has twice won the Delaware Press Association Communications Award in poetry. She lives on the banks of the Red Clay Creek in Delaware, where she is surrounded by the natural world she loves.