Michele Bombardier, WHAT WE DO

WHAT WE DO: POEMS, Michele Bombardier. Kelsay Books, Aldrich Press, 2018, 86 pages, $17 paper, www.kelsaybooks.com.

Hospitals on fire, wasps nests, witchhazel scratching at windows, wine that tastes like relief, poems like prayer—it’s hard not to swoon over this book. I agree with Dorianne Laux, who (in her cover blurb) writes: “At its center, What We Do is about survival, how quickly things can fall apart, and what it means to live in the aftermath of loss.”

Plum Jam with Wine

If apples get knowledge, plums get memory,
and our tree, which I plumb forgot about
dropped her scarlet globes
which I gathered, stewed, added sugar and wine
from grapes of forbearance,
juiced to forgiveness,
cooked slow then poured into jars
like the day we got the call
your father died,
and you spent that long night in his jacket,
in the garage, sawing, cutting,
making a frame for the bevel-cut mirror
from the house on South Bell Street
that he built with his own hands,
adding room after room after each child;
the mirror from those years stands
now in our bedroom like the jars
in the pantry holds the seasons,
an offering   distilled down   to only sweetness.

—Michele Bombardier

Bombardier is the poet laureate of Bainbridge Island. Among other accomplishments, she is the founder of Fishplate Poetry, offering workshops, editing and retreats while raising funds for humanitarian relief. She writes poems that may help you survive, too. Learn more about her at her book page at Kelsay or her website, https://www.michelebombardier.com, where you can read several more poems.