Pouring One Out, by ​E.C. Traganas

Young Woman On Her Death Bed, by Anonymous (Flanders, modern day Belgium) 1621

Pouring One Out

I take her hand 
and hold it like a gold-encrusted vessel, 
precious lifeblood coursing through its mottled veins,
fragile, shriveled joints wrinkled, long and knotted, 
the slender claws of an airy wren. 

The shrouded evening wears thin; 
I close the buttons on her satin nightshirt,
tuck the collar soundly around her graceful neck 
shutting out the cold. 

‘Tell me stories, Mama,’ I coax. 
And the songbird lifts its trusting voice, 
rising lark-like from the meadow depths, 
scaling mountainous crags, soaring, 
breaking through the clouds 
filling the cup of my memories before nodding, 
landing safely back to rest.

​E.C. Traganas

Author of the debut novel Twelfth House and Shaded Pergola, a collection of short poetry with original illustrations, E.C. Traganas has published in a myriad of literary reviews. She enjoys a professional career as a Juilliard-trained concert pianist & composer, and is the founder/director of Woodside Writers, a literary forum based in New York.