Mama in the Window

Mama in the Window, Pastels, 13x16

A shape that I am unable to recognize due

to her aura of vulnerability,

her paradox of loving devotion and dispassionate love,

she draws open the curtains

and the bones of her face emerge, her faint palpitations,

– the smell of her cold heart –

deceit, her need for the lyric, the need for her soul’s fence-mending.

She is generous in sharing the scraps of meat easily torn from her flesh.

I get out of my bed to stand next to her.

She stares at the image of herself reflected in the window.

My silent, damned soul watches, still sealed

under the covers, within the echoes,

blotting out the power of penetration

and genealogy of snagged and tarnished memories,

unable to measure the depth of the sounding line:

Oh, how I feel next to her staring down at my frost-like foundered horse,

still standing, anchored, aching, unmovable in the frozen mud.

Jim Stoner is a multi-media/disciplinary artist, veteran, and award-winning educator. Jim earned an undergraduate degree in philosophy, a master's in professional writing, and a master's in interdisciplinary studies. He is a former Senior Lecturer of English at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Jim is the founder of The Healing Arts Blog and the podcast Spirituality Unplugged. Jim has published more than 35 artworks and poems in twenty journals. He is the author of a forthcoming book of poetry and artworks, Iterations of the Boy, and a book of poems, Dialectic of Life and Death.