Poetry: Sorrow Pen by Judith Cody

Sorrow Pen 

 

The blue pen seems, indeed is, a sort of enemy sword, swiping across the name, the sweet friend and brother taken by death. Time and pain and family love flow against the inevitable inking out of this simple trace of brother left among the gathered friends’ and families’ names on our Christmas card list. Is it necessary, a child’s voice asks? The aged voice of years says that it is; loss must be bitten through the cheek, as are the pains of giving birth, torn flesh, bleeding forgotten during the shadows to come, as a sort of physical observance of memory.

Judith Cody has had poetry published in over 160 journals, and has won many national awards, including second prize in the national Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition. Her new poetry chapbook, Garden on an Alien Star System, was just published by Finishing Line Press.