for David
1952-2018
After you die, the news goes on
without your commentary, obituary
buried between stories, pebble size
joys you carried and Sisyphean stones
you pushed against. Now your unrest
comes to rest under a granite headline,
remains cradled deep in earth’s aching.
What you would not give to rise again
in fury, kneel in lament, to live once more
in a world beyond repair, mourn everyone
dying, cast hope and votes toward 2020,
and linger in every second’s loveliness
like perhaps you are now, with Chang’e
roaming around the far side of the moon.
Donna Doyle is a poet and photographer. In addition to several anthologies, her work has been published in literary and medical journals including Poets Reading the News, Still: The Journal, Voices: A Literary Journal of Hope and Recovery, Pulse: Voices from the Heart of Medicine, Medical Literary Messenger, JAMA, and CHEST. Doyle is a Knoxville, Tennessee native and works part-time as an adjunct writing instructor at the Cancer Support Community of East Tennessee.
