visitation

I dreamed a room where
not-quite-chairs and giant protractors
and four-foot sheets of plexiglass slid
toward me, dancing me
against walls, into corners, attaching
themselves as if I had become
a human magnet.

Frightened, I awoke, scanned my body
for foreign parts, then my mother,
four years dead, glided toward me.
(I drew her with my loneliness.)
She looked how lately I feel her --
thirty-five with dark-again hair, waving
a rose silk scarf, boundless in her freedom.
She knows things now.

I wondered what would happen if
I touched her. Would my hand slice air?
Would it burn in spirit light? Could I draw
her to me tight like life draws death, death life,
a riddle of attraction, opposed yet irresistible,
charged by something we cannot divine?

rachelle rogers

Rachelle Rogers writes fiction and poetry, and is the nonfiction author of Creative Crafts Desk Handbook (Prentice-Hall, Inc.). She has received awards in competitions for memoir, poetry and short story, and was granted a 2002 Artist Residency at Wildacres Retreat. Rachelle also offers a Crafting Fiction workshop, editing services, manuscript critiques and individual mentoring for emerging writers. She can be reached at 828.252.4123 or by email at: rachellerogers@juno.com.