Which is it – word or stitch?
Choice flickers from
line to seam.
Face mask pattern, three pleats the standard,
but what shape for these isolate days?
What shape here for a stuttering poem –
Another kind of mask,
warding off fear,
shield against loss.
Words like pins,
holding my place.
Publications include two chapbooks—Poems for Tai Chi Players; The Space Between Us. Poems published in Naugatuck River Review, Evening Street Review, Light Journal, Gemini Magazine, The Literary Nest and other journals. Bower lives in an old house in rural Vermont, teaches tai chi, and honors imperfection, persistence, and family.
