My mother’s lamps have better light than mine:
with three settings, they sit on tables at the best angles.

Even though much of my time is spent reading,
I’ve never understood how to make things comfortable.

I wanted to live my life split open, awake,
walking through the slanted light and hard rains.

When as a child I almost drowned, I didn’t know it,
so I rose to the top then sank back down again,

curious about underwater things. Later, I cooked
brown rice and brewed huckleberry tea,

swam in the Delaware canals near New Hope,
and when the accident at Three Mile Island occurred,

I wrote a letter, Dear Sir or Madman:
Many days I wanted to end my life

but when my diagnosis came, I only
wanted to live.

At dawn today the frogs at the lily pond

clear their throats as if they have not
spoken in a thousand years.

In their voices I hear pain, knowing no one
listened to me when I spoke long ago

I see the day rise outside my window—
light on the edge of garden shears I hold.

This article appears in December 10 2018.

Barbara Buckman Strasko serves as the Poet in the Schools for the Poetry Paths program of Lancaster, Pa. Her poems have appeared in Rhino, Nimrod, Brilliant Corners and the anthology Best New Poets 2006. Her book of poems, Graffiti in Braille, was published in 2012.