Vox Populi
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Jennifer Franklin: As Antigone
I still want to believe
I can find some way
to fix you. That if I go
back to the beginning—
retrace the disaster
with the savant detective’s
obsession, I could uncover
a cure—the smartest
expert, some successful drug.
Better yet, I want
the pediatrician
to give you a different diagnosis.
I want to go back
to the walk home
past restaurants and playgrounds,
autumnal light catching
all the auburn
in your hair. I want to go back
to the moment
your father left us
outside the cafe, consider
handing you to him—
all forty-seven pounds
of you in your gingham pants
and hot pink cardigan—
Dalmatians decorating
the little pockets—and walk away
without looking back.
But I would never have left
and I won’t now. One way
or another, you will
be the end of me—
inadvertent brute force,
vector of virus, constant
caretaking, your heavy
body forcing my remission’s
abrupt end. I know
what’s waiting—
as certain as cloth hung to hold
my scarred neck.
I will not walk away.
The moment the nurse
pressed your splotched
body into my arms,
your needs fixed my fate.
Constantly confused,
your jagged voice
requests Christmas songs
all spring. You shove
words of grace
into my dry throat
and I sing. I don’t need
a bottle of pills,
white as sleep, to silence me.
Every ersatz saint knows
endless sacrifice
is suicide. For twenty years,
I have been disappearing.
Touch me;
I am not even here.
Copyright 2023 from If Some God Shakes Your House (Four Way, 2023).
Jennifer Franklin’s collections include No Small Gift (Four Way Books, 2018). She lives with her husband and daughter in New York City.
Vox Populi 
Mindblowing poem.
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Stunning fab poem
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“One way
or another, you will
be the end of me—
inadvertent brute force,
vector of virus” — ohhh.
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Thanks, Laure-Anne. Raw passion expressed in beautiful language…
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To the author – This worked so well, I was jarred by your picture (still in the mood of the poem).
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Thanks, I felt the same way about the poem.
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Jennifer What a superb poem this morning!
We are all disappearing—it comes to one slowly. I’m amazed so much remains of the world. I suppose that’s how it works.
Lovely and sad, like all good writing.
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Thanks, Sean. Yes, this is an elegant lament for an ill child. Very moving.
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