Undertow
by Julie Kerry

Picture yourself
A thousand tiny pebbles rushing downstream

In the current that presses your skin
Against huge, jagged rocks
As frightening as you are frightened

Remember that the undertow
Can take you in
So easily

Then imagine that I
Am the silt,
Thick and coarse and not nearly
As lovely as the waterfall

Think how I can bury you
In my cool, muddy layers
Beneath all that brings you pain

Imagine how tenderly
I can fold my flesh
Around you.

Autopsy
by Julie Kerry

After they cleaned the flesh
Polished the scalpel
And masked their faces
Somebody dared
To glance at the body
To stare into those glassy eyes.
Maybe that somebody
Needed a reason
Why her death would be no differnet
A reason
Why nobody looks
Into cold clear eyes
Where the pathway to the soul
Is transparent

Men don't care to look
Women don't care to look
But the eyes of the dead
Never die.
They won't close my eyes
They won't close my eyes
They won't close my eyes

Legacy
by Julie Kerry

Numbed fingers of sorrow
Oppressed
Attached to the cradle,
She rocks it gently.
Ladies live for centuries
Painting the sugary
Blood of their mother's tears
On dishwater nails
Trying to forget their mother's
Sorrows.
The lady is now
A woman
Ripe and rain-swelled
Tear-swelled
Weeping her mother's tears
While the child sleeps.

A Typographical Error
(Artistic Complements That Failed)
by Julie Kerry

A lonely artist
Paints tear stains on her face
In black and white,
Hiding behind her clever mask
From words
She never learned to create.
Her lover (the writer)
Looks away,
Ashamed of his flower
That wilted and died,
Drowned in raging waters
That spilled absentmindedly
From his neatly printed page.