Photography © Edward S. Gault

 

Hallways in Winter

It’s the winter of life,
when mortals fade away,
invisible as they drift down
empty halls, like ghosts,
opaque and moaning over
aching joints, while ink-blue
veins traverse cold hands and
swollen calves, like stagnant
rivers, threatening to burst
dams before Spring. Milky
eyes watch time crawl by on
grandfather clocks, or maybe
it flies like a peloton breeze
catapulting toward the finish
line.

imperceptible

indiscernible

insubstantial

Brittle bones fear fractures
and creak like floorboards
under thunderous feet.
Cloaked in a tapestry woven
from sage and societal stigma,
edging ever so bravely towards
that waiting, wafting door

 

Laura Boatner is a registered nurse by day and an aspiring writer by night. She has been published in scholarly nursing journals.

Edward S. Gault is a poet and fine arts photographer living in Brighton, Massachusetts. His work has appeared in Oddball Magazine, Spectrum, Wilderness House Literary Review, Interlude, Currents, and Encore. His poetry collection, Airhead and Other Poems was published this year by Read and Green Books.