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Lourdes
When I first saw her
standing at the edge
of the open grotto
the old black woman
was just reaching up,
touching the lip
of the great rock wall.
Then she began
tap-tapping her hands
along any piece
of the wall she could reach
as the line she waited in
started to move.
Still, she kept tapping,
collecting on her hands
the cool spring water
seeping through unseen
cracks in the stone
before she pressed it
into the muscles
of her face & neck
& then started reaching
& tapping again,
afraid not to make
the most of her one
chance to touch something
she’d come to believe
was truly miraculous.
Fearless Fosdick
Even considering
how young I was,
it's hard to imagine
the affection I felt
for those cartoons
despite the fact
I didn’t get the joke,
didn’t know my favorite
comic book cop
was nothing but a parody
of Dick Tracy.
But that was the year
my father went to war,
and when I saw the big hole
blasted through the center
of Fosdick’s gut,
I recognized
it was how I felt.
And nothing I ate
while Dad was away—
whether school lunches
or the cookies I’d steal
from kitchen tins—
could fill the emptiness
in that space.
Mark Madigan received his MFA in Writing from Spalding University in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of Thump and other poems, a chapbook available from Finishing Line Press.
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