Kimberly Peterson

Poetry for Hope and Healing

Amid Mailbox & Maple

Full Moon Through Sunroof

Mar 13, 2019 | Poem

Daddy, lift me up
to touch the stone. Its the moon,
hold it in your mind.

Mar 9, 2019 | Poem

tangerine moon drips
light on thinning quilt of snow
crocus sleeps beneath

Hemorrhage

Mar 5, 2019 | Poem

An elegant label for the body’s betrayal,
 a leaky dam, a loss of containment.
 Today’s trickles from once healed pin pricks 
 foreshadowed by your liver’s failure
 to play its role in blood clotting.
  
 Your eyes hold nimbus clouds compressed 
 to charcoal, no flash of fear, no bolt of anger.
  
 You answer the question 
 my eyebrows ask.
 It’s alright, I’m ready.
 Anyone I can call?
 No, no one.
 Anything I can do?
 No       well     yes        can you rub my feet?
  
 I massage my promise 
 into your skin with lotion.
  
 The next day, a new patient 
 occupies your room. 


First appearing in Banister: Niagara Poetry Anthology Vol. 32 Oct. 2017

Nation needs dementia strategy

Feb 22, 2019 | Poem

Mother and daughter spliced together
 attached to the same stalk. Peeling 
 back cob leaves reveals kernel 
 after kernel of mother’s decay,
 until daughter cares for an empty husk; 
 withering in their private drought.
  
 At her mother’s funeral, daughter 
 dreams of soaking in the tub, 
 wrapping herself in freshly 
 laundered sheets with no
 one to interrupt her sleep.
  
 She clings like a climbing vine nurse 
 who asserted “There’s no right way 
 to grieve.”
  
 First appearing www.Bywords.ca January 2019

Molluscan Memory

Feb 22, 2019 | Poem

Aquarium existence in an office,
 glass walls and window panes. 
 A parade of people tapping 
 on an always open door. 
 Window washers claim 
 the best view.
  
 Hired for radula sharpness,
 to rasp against browning 
 sludge for that clean idea,
  
 without the title I’m a slug 
 chewing through yesterday’s
 decayed novelties. Boss milks 
 anxieties to extract Tyrian 
 purple ink, regal flourishes 
 for her mundane briefs.
  
 Clinging to walls, I inch along 
 to retreat under my desk. Heart 
 mussel memory pumps saline
 through not yet inflated lungs.
 Trickles from eyes shed double
 helixed pieces of me searching 
 for a stream that floats to the briny 
 shores of birth.
  
 But like a hermaphrodite, 
 I screw myself and remain, 
 as empty as a washed-up seashell,
 selling out far from the seashore.
  
 First appearing in In/Words Magazine & Press: Issue 18.2 
February 2019

First Dental Appointment

Feb 20, 2019 | Poem

With no appointment for myself,
I'm a severe seagull surfing currents.
You're intrigued by the hydraulic chair
 florescent lights, and sit quietly.
 I pat your hand, You’re such a brave boy.
  
 Now its Mommy’s turn
  
 I’m as trapped as that squirrel that fell
 down the chimney, left hundreds of sooty paw prints 
 scurrying to escape.
  
 Only one exit route, so I 
 climb into the dentist’s chair.
 You pat my hand, You’re such a brave mommy.
  
 First published by Poetry Breakfast.

Sleeping with Sand

Jan 23, 2019 | Poem

Jane’s husband is dead on arrival,
 head-on collision. Empathetic murmurs begin.
 She could have been working in ER today
 but called in sick. I see colleagues scurry around 
 gathering shiny tidbits. Clear day, dry roads,
 no rubber scars from slamming breaks. New 
 theories collect. Did he scream “I’ll teach 
 the bitch” when he veered hard left?
 Angular comments resurrect
 when Sue remarries one year later.
  
 After my husband’s death, I know
 the same colleagues gather 
 in two’s and three’s, lean
 over steaming cups of black coffee,
 full-bodied rumours soaking through
 the hospital like the stain from a glass 
 of merlot toppled on crisp white linen. 
 “She’d just left him, so messy. Had to 
 kick down the door. Anyone know cause of death?”
  
 A decade later, my dreams gush these 
 brackish memories with your fresh love. 
 Your brass bed, lodged on the border
 between scrub grass and sand, glitters 
 with the caress of morning sun. 
 The stench of beached seaweed drifts by as seagulls 
 swoop up and down, carousel creatures released, 
 the ha-ha-ha of their call mocking me.
  
 There’s warmth along my back. I turn to embrace
 the one beside me, shrouded in white sheets. 
 Her deceased husband? Mine? You? An amalgam 
 of all three. As I struggle to untangle myself, 
 rain starts to drum away the shoal beneath brass feet. 
 I reach for a sea shell. Into its cochlea I confess 
 “ I only wanted space to live”
 before my heart pounds me awake 


First appearing in Ibis Head Review Vol.3 Issue 2 January 2018

I remember the moment the translucent soap bubble of clarity popped
listening to the radio as a back drop, occasional distraction to mundane housework
I had no interest in the gardening show, just too lazy to turn the dial
when a few snippets resonated, drawing my attention

like dust particles surfing air currents
or streaks on the bay window
suddenly illuminated by the afternoon sun

prefers indirect sunlight
doesn’t like wet feet
African violets flourish with benign neglect

Huh, that explains it
the masses of tender velvet leaves and yellow dotted
purple pedals while the Bird of Paradise droops, depressed

I expand my repertoire to include a Christmas
Cactus. Likes to be pot-bound. Needs several weeks of cool,
dark and dry to bud. With minimal effort, I’m rewarded
with a multitude of triple decker blossoms. So what
if they bloom in February. I don’t like
to force anything

If only I had learned sooner
that some lovers are tropical
and some thrive in the desert
I’d have been fewer botanical disasters in my past

First published in The Banister, Volume 31 (2016)

I remember the moment the translucent soap bubble of clarity popped
 listening to the radio as a back drop, occasional distraction to mundane housework
 I had no interest in the gardening show, just too lazy to turn the dial
 when a few snippets resonated, drawing my attention
  
 like dust particles surfing air currents
 or streaks on the bay window
 suddenly illuminated by the afternoon sun
  
 prefers indirect sunlight
 doesn’t like wet feet
 African violets flourish with benign neglect
  
 Huh, that explains it
 the masses of tender velvet leaves and yellow dotted 
 purple pedals while the Bird of Paradise droops, depressed
  
 I expand my repertoire to include a Christmas 
 Cactus. Likes to be pot-bound. Needs several weeks of cool, 
 dark and dry to bud. With minimal effort, I’m rewarded
 with a multitude of triple decker blossoms. So what
 if they bloom in February. I don’t like 
 to force anything
  
 If only I had learned sooner
 that some lovers are tropical
 and some thrive in the desert
 I’d have been fewer botanical disasters in my past
  
  
 First published in The Banister, Volume 31 (2016)