Two Poems by Andrea Potos

EMERGENCY FAMILY MEETING
                  In memory

I was called to attend, my father
still breathing under the mask after
three weeks, his flesh seized
by a whole body infection.

What I remember now is the perfect
smoothness of my tires on the interstate,
their even sounds of rubber on asphalt
along the ninety-plus miles,

an in-between I could carry
before I’d trace again my steps
along the polished, sterile hallways–
nothing yet decided, no proclamation
issued yet by the doctor, my father still
lying in his present tense

while I sped into the future.

*

ON NO LONGER MOURNING MY 19-YEAR-OLD SELF

Girl-woman with the prairie-flat tummy
and creaseless skin, not one dream of one grey
strand on her flowing river of dark hair;
wearing tube-top and short shorts, or denim jacket
and swirling skirt, the girl whirled around the city streets
by her dashing boy-man in his British convertible.
She could so easily stay out until dawn.

Let her be where she dwells, in her glistening,
unreachable realm, without the astonishing
daughter she would later bear,

her hands that had not yet found their path
to the making of poems, her heart
still so unrescued and unformed.

*

Andrea Potos’ recent collections of poetry are Her Joy Becomes (Fernwood Press), and Marrow of Summer (Kelsay Books). A new book from Fernwood Press entitled Belonging Songs is forthcoming in 2025. Her poems are forthcoming in Poetry East, The Windhover, Amethyst Review, Paterson Literary Review, Midwest Quarterly, Rosebud and The Healing Muse. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin, surrounded by books.