by Cynthia Boersma
1.
She tells me she’s full of sadness as if there’s something wrong with being full of sadness.
As if the long sobbing in the shower behind the locked door is worse than the redundancy of water and tears.
Or that locked door.
We know we will trace the shuddering wake of her back bone.
We all can hear what comes to crouching in the cooling water.
We are on neither side of the door.
“Mom, don’t do this to me!”
or is it
Mom: “Don’t do this to me!”
or is it
the locked door?
2.
As if long sobbing for so longing long lasts too long shred-
ding something at all vital crying at all hu-
hu-hurts weirdly so so sobbing
takes tears choking tears without end
now again over and over palms ache
all of this repeating without beginning or ending or swallowing
this sadness takes over falling without end takes darkness over
retching (even the word retch makes me retch) over
everything
me her she
cries
at least once
one tear
from
one
eye.
3.
He tells me he’s full of sadness as if there’s something wrong with being full of sadness.
As if there’s something wrong with being.
As if there’s something.
Else.
As if.
4.
Then I walk around wobbly, full of this watery teariness,
a puddle in skin, swollen water
balloon, swelling and swelling and too
frivolous for this drought
of joy.
Cynthia Boersma was born on a submarine base in New London, CT and for an embarrassingly long time thought this meant she had been born underwater. She practices as a psychotherapist and child psychotherapist after decades practicing as a civil rights lawyer. Her poetry has appeared in Copper Nickel, The Laurel Review, divagations, and the American Journal of Poetry. She lives in the mountains of Southern Oregon.
Emerge Literary Journal 