Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

Melinda Coppola

twenty four may | from the inside out

This morning I walked early,
mismatched garments
layered to repel a cold, spitting rain.

I’d pushed his baseball cap
down hard
over the knitted ear band
I bought to share
with her, which she
most emphatically rejected
for not being soft enough,
or pink.

Featherweight Bean jacket—
the one that lifts me to frequent
if silent praise
for its tireless rebuff
of even the most bitter winds—
warmed me companionably,
its soft arms moving along with mine.

This walking time—
tucked carefully into the space
between my early rising
and her wake up song,
before the gentle time to get up
directive I save for him—
has become sacred
in my other-centered life.

Rounding the first corner
of the favored route,
I looked down
and had to laugh
at mismatched gloves,
one pink and hers,
one turquoise, mine
by default,

and the shoes, laced oddly,
partially, with big gaps
between eyelets three and six

to nurture the well worn feet
whose dorsal surfaces
are temperamental, and
wavy as the sea.

The thought
and the smile
bubbled up together:
I am a walking exhibition
of my pieced together life.

This quilt of a family:
The daughter
with all her needs hanging out,
her talents slowly
coming to light
in explosions of art
and word
and song.

The man who adapted
to both of us,
stepping in, a little
closer every year,
to father her.

The felines,
who sleep tirelessly,
rising long enough
to eat and coat us
with their fur
of many colors.

Middle aging me,
holding it all together,
multi-hued patches of love,
bits of colorful string,
a plush batting of hope.

An ode
to harmonious discord
is not such a bad thing to be,

Said I to self
out walking.

–Melinda Coppola

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