Two Poems by Kay Cosgrove

BLINDNESS

I have so much more to tell you, but you
cannot bear it now, said St. John.

Of all Jesus’ agony that last night
I think most of the confusion. I hate
the unknown.

A little while and you will no longer see me, he said,
and again a little while later and you will see me.

I still don’t know what he means,

except, yesterday,
on the corner of Henry and Amity streets
I stood behind a woman, her pregnant belly large
beneath a blue winter coat.

She and I were waiting
for the light to change.

When I looked at her,
she was looking down,
at the child? Waiting for her hour to arrive,
for grief to become joy.

So you also are now in anguish,

living and alive.

It Was Raining

The last time I had a baby was the first time I had a baby. It was raining. The sky, accustomed to being blue at that time of year, had turned charcoal. Dark. The sky was frightened, and I decided to bathe despite my mother’s warnings about baths in thunderstorms. I almost used Epsom salts but changed my mind at the last minute. I did not bathe for long. When I emerged, still round and now clean, the tree outside glistened. It rained and rained while I did a load of dark laundry, counting each piece I dropped into the cool water. What did I eat? Nothing. Later, when they told me to look, as if by magic there was a girl covered in wet. Did she wail at arriving? I don’t know. The light from the window was blinding, it covered everything.

Kay Cosgrove‘s manuscript has been named a finalist for the Field Poetry Prize and the Larry Levis Prize at Four Way Books. Her work has appeared in the Southern Review, the Massachusetts Review, and Prairie Schooner, among other journals. She teaches at St. Joseph’s University as a Visiting Professor of English. For more information, visit kaycosgrove.com.