My Talisman

By Judy DeCroce

just across the bed bars
right next to me—
Louise, right here,
in the children’s ward,

 

she didn’t understand tests either,
taking blood, taking urine,
always taking something from us

 

but she knew Nancy Drew,
magic tricks, and board games,
we’d scooch our beds close

 

more time
too much time
alone time
quiet time

 

little girls—
we had time,
till we didn’t

 

A Cup of Words

two truths carefully balanced
approaching a quiet meeting

 

arranging patterns, a mime of thoughts

 

settling like an airship
tethering over that place

 

where it takes time
takes losing oneself

 

to separate from those inner voices:

 

that “no you can’t,”
that fearful child inside

 

as timid words advance,
slowly, the pen begins to move

 

Judy DeCroce from USA is an internationally published poet, flash fiction writer, educator, and avid reader whose recent works have been published by Brown Bag Online, North of Oxford, The Poet Magazine, Amethyst Review, The Wild Word, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, and a number of journals and anthologies. As a professional storyteller and teacher of that genre, she also offers, workshops in flash fiction. Judy lives and works in upstate New York.