Melinda LePere
Mark Edim “Statue Hands”
my mother’s veins
raised and celadon meander
back to the gulf
trace our boundary above
the lantern of her skin
child, mother, lover glow
below blue line vellum
long finger tapers smooth
knob-knuckled hands
stalks of glads
purple and yellow bloom
against a weeping wall
pearl hair holds her last heat
the long aroma in infant sleep
I cannot
breathe deep enough
compressed to light she leaks
into the universe
Melinda (Mindy) LePere, a retired Detroit teacher, holds an MFA from Vermont College and has participated in the Springfed Arts writing community for many years. Her work has been published in the anthology At the Edge of Mirror Lake, in the Paterson Literary Review, the Detroit Metro Times, The MacGuffin, the Valparaiso Poetry Review and The Ambassador Poetry Project. She also received a nomination for a Pushcart Prize. Currently, she is working on chapbook publications and children’s books. Mindy’s affinity for the surreal is manifest in a fascination with puppets, fairy tales and the ordinary strangeness of life. It lurks in missing body parts and was incubated while teaching 20 years in the Detroit Public Schools.