Fay Dillof
—
Mystic, CT
As if in an airport terminal—
all her friends departed—her own flight
delayed—
my mother watches strangers.
Asks again for the time.
Loses track of it. Wants to be more
than merely waiting.
Clutches her bag.
Where again are her glasses?
Checks around her
to make sure she still has
what she still has.
Touches again the bridge of her nose.
The top of her head.
Mystic, CT
She calls her useless right hand, flopped at her side,
my almost-dead fish, but—
her words, an effort,
slurred––all I hear for certain is my almost,
like our decades-long near-miss of love.
In my memory of this—
it’s late
November, almost dark, and we’re outside—my eyes, tearing
from the wind which, tearing across the river
reaches me. It reaches me
but only after it’s gone
miles without touching anything.
Fay Dillof’s poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Best New Poets, New England Review, Ploughshares, Gettysburg Review, Beloit Poetry Journal, Rattle, New Ohio Review, Blackbird, Plume, and elsewhere. A recipient of scholarships from Bread Loaf and Sewanee, Fay has been awarded the Milton Kessler Memorial Prize in Poetry and the Dogwood Literary Prize. Fay lives with her husband and daughter in Northern California where she works as a psychotherapist.
© Bear Review 2025
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Site Design + Build
October Associates
