Gumball Poetry - Poetry by Heather Shaw

Heather Shaw

Hands Disfigured with Grief

There is no photo of you among other
photos in the cigar box or silver frames

although I have the prints of what focused you,
what, perhaps, you wanted me to give the son

stranded after his bath when your brain
dilated to a red pulse and did not blink.

I have the letter, read outside the door
of a classroom three thousand miles and one month

after your death that begins, I am so sorry...

Dear Monica With Toucan Feathers in Your Hair,
I have no photographs of you to conjure

darkroom intimacies, just these silvered lines of what
burned behind your eyes and shaped with grief

the hands I use to soothe the child left to me,
to all of us, overexposed.

Heather Shaw was born in 1959 in Northern Michigan. She dropped out of the University of Michigan after three years to pursue adventure and experience in Mexico, on her way to the Amazon. She returned to Michigan in 1992 and began writing poetry when her youngest child entered kindergarten.

Email Heather Shaw at hshaw@gumballpoetry.com.

Want to see what reviews look like? Click here
Like this poem? Send this link to a friend

Post a review of this poem.

6.27.2000
Margaret C. Rigsby (PURDYzKAT@aol.com) from Sweet Home, Alabama

Needs work
I feel the poem could be improved upon. It is rather obscure, but I would in no way be as critical of it as jmb488@psu.edu. After all, the Editor did publish it, right? Best to you Heather.

5.31.2000
Ryan Gonzales (illuminos@hotmail.com) from Toronto, ON

Captures succintly, much like a photograph, the heavy emotion of profound grief.
One of the things I liked the poem is its structure...dividing it into two short lines gives the poem a feeling of tension and urgency, and I could clearly picture someone mourning or in abject grief while mouthing these words... the images are blurry and fragmentary, much like the haziness of a memory, particularly when we reminisce over then them in a state of sadness or depression...I loved your last line... the word 'overexposed' not only ties in with all the photo imagery in your poem but also expresses what grief does to us all....it can blind us to the clarity of our individual lives...it can blur our emotions, much like a film can be ruined when exposed to harsh light.