Lily Pad by Judith Skillman

Already written in,
this carpet remnant,
these unseen frogs,
this moment
germane and dear,
pedestrian in its yellow leaves
beneath cornflower blue sky.

Every instant
a reflection of my mother’s hand
thumbing the pie crust—
that dear thumb
embroidered with innocence
forever rubbing two pennies
together to make a meal.

Her precise off-green
taste for a life
taken from persecution
and the gas chambers,
where her relatives
perished though she—
placid through feast
and famine—continues
to laugh and cough
and avoid the nightshades.

Judith Skillman’s poems have appeared in Cimarron Review, Threepenny Review, Zyzzyva, and other literary journals. She has received awards from the Academy of American Poets and Artist Trust, and her recent collection is A Landscaped Garden for the Addict (Shanti Arts, 2021). She is the lead editor of When Home Is Not Safe: Writings on Domestic Verbal, Emotional and Physical Abuse (McFarland, 2021). Visit www.judithskillman.com.