Jodi Balas
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Small Deaths

Sometimes after work I would drive
past the nursing home,
notice the sparrows conjugating
outside - bird feed, bread, their dying
wish, a song.  In my head, I calculate
the number of years I have left
til I’m just a number, a fraction of one.
A man is wheeled out in a herringbone
cap, the color of a Cuban cigar.
What does it mean to be moved by others?
Under a wing perhaps, to be carried
throughout a course of small deaths -
atrophic and the tick tick tick of the
clock never stills. Only after, does a
feather dust the pavement and a shadow
slip behind a blur of cataracts.
No one speaks about the friends who
shift into machinery - wheelchair advisor,
shower chair companion; The TV with
a mouth almost human, blaring through
the halls like a phantom lover.
And under a blinding sky, the staff
will remind them how light is a sharp
shooter, or how fast the air moves
at this hour.   How the flowers grow
less and less daring.

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Jodi Balas is a neurodivergent poet residing in Wilkes Barre, Pennsylvania. Her poetry has been featured in Painted Bride Quarterly, Sugar House Review, Pinch, The McNeese Review and elsewhere. Jodi’s poem, “His mouth, mine” was selected as a finalist for the 2023 River Heron Review poetry prize and her poem, “Bone Density” won the 2023 Comstock Review Muriel Craft Bailey Award judged by Danusha Lameris. Jodi is currently in the process of marketing her first Chapbook to publishers and will hopefully be one of many works to come.