Poetica Magazine

I light your yahrzeit candle, its flame somber,

holding in its small glow the shining moments

of your too-short life,

how you slurped pasta, chin reddened with sauce, swirled

ice cream in a lemony bowl until it turned to cold soup,

laughed with your brother about some joke I can’t remember.

Today, I listen to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos, notes

lifting into air like a charm of finches.

I gaze at what is often unseen; juniper berries

not yet blue, hiding among needle-like leaves,

half-spun web in the doorway’s corner,

two young figs, tender-green, on the tree.

Clouds shape and re-shape, their whims

driven by wind, a creamy moth flirts

with a bee on lavender

as I murmur your name, let it rise from my lips,

bind itself to my prayer.

About the Author

Valerie Bacharach’s writing has appeared or will appear in: Vox Populi, Blue Mountain Review, Ilanot Review, Minyon Magazine, and One Art, among others. Her newest chapbook, After/Life, will be published by Finishing Line Press. She has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize.