Medicine
for Martha Tabor

Fog lay atop the single field
                        like a balm,
              perfectly contained,

hovering just above
                        the long grass.
              Perhaps descending

from the sky,
                        or rising perhaps
              from the earth, in the field

fog connected the two,
                        the ground and the air,
              sewed them together

in loose white stitches.
                        It looked medicinal,
              the fog healing the field.

To your doctors
                        who live
              by the body's obliquity,

who make their living
                        by your swerving,
              I raise these wisps of vapor,

indeterminate fog fixed and bounded
                        by a slim rail fence,
              like the tenuous knots

of abraded bandage, like a prayer,
                        shapely
              in its shapelessness.

It was nighttime,
                        just, the sun gone
              and the last shreds of luster

leaching from the trees,
                        the pale pantheon
              gathering in a field before dispersing.

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Copyright © 2012 Kim Roberts All rights reserved
from Beloit Poetry Journal
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission