Judy DeCroce
Bad News
Out there, bad news weighs more on the tongue,
in a letter, or hearing a phone’s deeper ring.
Until an hour ago, outside my window,
the world was normal, August, breezeless,
the cats fed and your post card written;
just another middle to an eventless week.
But when the phone rings;
in drops the news you had died, not today,
but worse—a week ago.
All those ordinary days with you not in them,
and that cold heavy news—no longer out there,
while my card on the road to you, is still coming.
(for John Kolodziej 1917 – 2012)
About the writer:
Judy DeCroce, is an internationally published poet, flash fiction writer, educator, and professional storyteller whose works have been published by The BeZINE, Brown Bag Online, North of Oxford, The Poet Magazine, Amethyst Review, OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters, and many other journals and anthologies. Recently one of her poems, “Teeny’s Barn,” was selected by Vita Brevis Press for their poetry anthology titled Brought to Sight & Swept Away: A Poetry Anthology About Time that went to number one in the New Poetry Anthologies 2021 category in Amazon.
Image: Youth Mourning by Sir George Clausen, RA (1852-1944). No medium specified. No size specified. 1916. Public domain.
