Penitent
- Penitent
Who tries to see the oblique angel
Had I known….
Tries to settle sorrow, dissipate pain like snow
Field of penitents—thin snow pinnaclesobelisk-shaped, close together
Photo, grayscale, the abandoned dock—bottle bodies, neck-and-shouldered
Penitence of the shatter, then quiet—
of a boy punching a taillight, pulling out the string of white bulbs
Cradling the glowing coilas one would a deaf white cat
Mother left the cotton field for the thieves' van
Mother's white hem caught the penitentiary doorher skirt impaled on its lace
Punch-cutout of her bodycloud in snowWhat did she ever do
Sickle of ice, blizzard-serratedmelted after leveling the field of velvet
Froth of whitewater kickingreversing the surface-freezing after body pushed body
Ghost go [End Page 187]
Tanya Muzumdar teaches at North Central Michigan College and works as a freelance book editor. Her poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Nashville Review, Prairie Schooner, Superstition Review, THRUSH Poetry Journal, Vinyl, and elsewhere. She is the recipient of a fellowship from Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts.
