making space

our house overflows with killed promises
and I think of days when
I still took kisses for granted

like ‘amen’
at the end of a Sunday prayer
or
the purr of a cat
when offered a nuzzle under the chin

we both know
yesterday dies
to make room for tomorrow

but you haven’t yet learned,
as I have,
that a heartbeat
can be revived
by the curve of an arm,
the outreach of a palm.

The poems of Pris Campbell have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including PoetsArtists, Rusty Truck, Bicycle Review, Chiron Review, and Outlaw Poetry Network. The Small Press has published eight collections of her poetry and Clemson University Press a collaboration with Scott Owens. When The Wolves Come After You, with Michael Parker, from Goss Publications and Squalls on the Horizon, a book of tanka, from Nixes Mate and My Southern Childhood are her most recent small press books. A former Clinical Psychologist, sailor and bicyclist until sidelined by ME/CFS in 1990, she makes her home in the Greater West Palm Beach, Florida, with her husband.