Breath & Shadow

Volume 7, Number 3

Breath and Shadow

Summer 2010

Volume 7, Number 3

On A Frozen Lake

By Madison Bridgen

The sun shone on the grey ice. It was barren of snow, unusual for early March, but the broken mirror of the surface didn’t complain. It sat like a disk in between the forested banks, and even though the centre was cracked open the surface was studded with the tin sided huts of ice fishermen.

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Alzheimer’s:Living with Dementia

once we thought THEY
   were just wacky/crazy
zombies

forgetting everything

Oh you are…?
now
something's wrong
with us
DIAGNOSIS.

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My Cane and Me

By Amy Barta

A stuffed gymnasium housed the hundreds of graduates from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. On the sides of the seated students donning navy robes and colored ribbons determined by their field of study were family members and friends. The student speaker that day in April 2007 focused her inspirational speech on a fellow graduate, me. She described how I’d overcome enormous challenges to achieve a Bachelors Degree with high honors.

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A Poem of Epic Scale which I've Attempted a Dozen Times Before and Failed Miserably

by Steven Miller

The walls in there were white, just like in the films,
but so are walls in most new, apartment buildings.
I shared a room with two people far less
crazy than me and one far crazier.
I couldn't write. I couldn't read…

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The Bracelet

by Geoffrey C. Porter

I took to wearing long sleeve shirts on my fourteenth birthday. Two years before, I’d received my bracelet, and the restrictions started. I was born with the sugar disease, and ever since I’ve been on insulin. The insulin doesn’t matter, for it lives in a simple little pump I wear around my bicep. I replaced the cartridges with fresh ones and keep an eye on the battery charge. I could charge it with any one of my other devices, so that didn’t bother me. What bothered me was the stinking bracelet.

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Baptism

By Linda A. Cronin

Three times a week, I come to the pool

at Children’s Specialized Hospital to exercise.

Even in the middle of winter, the warm, moist air

reminds me of the humid days of summer. Since

I’m unable to descend the ladder or to walk on land,

when I am ready Pam transfers me to a stretcher

which is lifted out over the pool then lowered gently

into the water where Sue stands ready to release me.

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The Day I Drowned At Tin Can Beach

by Paula Apodaca

I shouldn’t be telling you this. I don’t mean it’s a secret, I just mean, I shouldn’t even be here. The summer after I turned five, I drowned in the ocean and was saved by my uncle Don.

When I was little, summer meant bundling up towels, blankets, bottles of Sea and Ski, Noxzema, lawn chairs and telescoping forks, hot dogs, buns, mustard, relish, marshmallows, pots of chili with mushrooms, and a giant metal tin of saltines. We never owned a cooler of any kind, so the afternoon before our seasonal trip, Mama would go from house to house, neighbor to neighbor, in search of a Coleman’s cooler…

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Quilts, Flags and Other Wrappings

by Sergio Ortiz

I started the quilt
when the only reminder
of civility I had was a stuffed doll
whose stitches came undone
under the weight of my books.

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Balance

by Rebecca Cook

“I’m in a wheelchair--I’m not brain dead.”
               

“I know, but what if you need help? What if something bad happens?”
               

“What if it does? I can handle this.”
               

“If you’re sure. . .” Uncertainty dripped from every syllable.
               

“See you in a few days. I love you, Mom. I’m getting on the train now.”

I overrode her last minute worries and some of my own as I hung up the phone. I was assured that the train was “handicapped accessible” and felt optimistic. I went up the ramp and surveyed where I would be spending the next thirteen hours.

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