poems by rachel kellum
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Dementia in the Digital Age
From the nicest room in the home
with three large closets and the only private bathroom
she likes to report as an inventory of blessings
every time we talk— and two twin beds
with a space between where she and her husband
reach across to finger-kiss goodnight,
Mom sends photos I already sent her of my last visit,
all day, in duplicate, triplicate, quadruplicate, no words.
No responses to my questions or comments.
No hearts or smiles or praying hands.
But sometimes, I love you, all caps.
And photos of her decades ago in 1980s prime, one
in a black and red tailored suit dress and 3-inch heels
flanked by fat, balding bosses who flaunted her
like the jewel she was to lure business. Sent twice.
And another, only once, of her white-haired mother
at her side, grandma’s Colorado mountains behind,
Mom’s tiny waist cinched with a belt around
a fitted blue-jean jumpsuit. And this one, thrice:
she and her oldest daughter together,
gorgeous, smiling, always mistaken as sisters.
And this one, at least four times a week:
her mother tucked against her scowling father,
cigarette aloft behind his youngest daughter,
leaning against a white picket fence
with their five grown kids, middle-aged
Mom in black and red stripes as far away
from him as possible. Or five times, this:
sitting around a Cracker Barrel table
maybe ten years ago, her hair still dark and thick,
still donning snug fitting animal print,
with three sisters, their racist husbands
and remaining veteran brother
whom she lovingly reminded of her name
and later recounted the way his wife
rolled her eyes and scolded,
“You’ve already told that story, Wayne!”
And minutes after, this one, four times:
a cropped close-up of her at that same table,
blurry, pixelated, head held proud.
And yesterday, this one, three times:
Mom’s right arm reaching around her oldest,
now-estranged son with two kids on his knee
and her left around her youngest girl—
long curled, who died five years after that,
her hand on my shoulder—and my older sister
and I, on the floor before her with our daughters
in our laps. Mom’s smile huge, satin blouse signature red.
Her house, a nest she bought herself. Behind us,
in a vase she had carefully arranged, burgundy
silk flowers bloomed on long, plastic stems.
Perhaps it was Christmas. Perhaps it always is.
napping in the digital age
tenderly, my thumb
rubs my index fingertip
dream-scrolling dark screens
Easter Art Class
I started the day singing
with children I love
placed palettes of paint
paper and brushes
at every seat
to help them celebrate spring
and laughed with them
at their muscled bunnies
sang about their purple rain
pointed out the beauty
of their blue-black storms
and even the red
dripping from the upper edge
of the page
of a fifth-grade girl
old enough
to know how soon
the newly born
face danger.
I hung her work
in the hallway
where it took
its rightful place
among
festive eggs
and pink tulips.
30 poems in 30 days?
As usual, I’m going to try! Click the image above for prompts and support from the National Poetry Writing Month website, where inspiration is posted every day if you are stumped.
His First Snow
Spring snow: This “relatively rare weather event is among only six times it has happened in the last 130 years.” Westside Seattle.com, 13 March 2026
Almost two, Cal knew instinctively
what to do—touch his tongue
to the shelf of snow
on the large pot’s rim.
His dark eyes darkened more, shifted,
registering cold,
the almost too much of it.
He bent, let it melt and drain from his lips,
turned, walked ten steps,
tilted back his face
to take in heavy flakes, we thought,
mouth open, nose running,
tongue flicking once at his own salt.
“Ah!” he said, “Ah!”
pointing to white sky,
not at snow,
as we briefly, romantically supposed,
but at the low drone of a jet
beyond sight.
Dogerrel in Dark Times
Living in a mountain paradise,
An hour out from the possible presence of ICE,
I take daily tinctures of vice to stay awake—fuck it: woke.
This morning’s dose: Hughes’ The Ways of White Folks—
Acrid, choked drops under the tongue
To inoculate myself from the plague
I inhaled in a crowd of gentle, well-meaning white folks,
Hand-tied by privilege (are you?), leaning in, cheering on white poets—
Two lovers who promised in wide gesture and easy rhyme
That joy under the moon is resistance in dark times
Which I suspect is only true
If you are black, brown, queer or chronic-blue.
It Could be Otherwise
It is this.
This waking in the warmth of us,
his brown shoulder ever
my western mountain
inching slowly, as mountains do
toward me. I am no valley.
The long cloud of my arm
drapes along his gentle slope
a promise of weather.
The silence holds us
as it holds everything,
preferring not one thing
over another.
with a grateful nod to Jane Kenyon’s “Otherwise”
Giant Hand
Muscular cottonwoods dwindle to tips
reaching for light, tight buds refuse
the ways of roots mirrored below.
They plan to open a thousand eyes while I
spread out blindly underground, white,
thirsty, unaware of the entire structure
spanning over me—a giant hand built
by my dark wandering, begging for water.
Wasted Blessings
In early March’s greenhouse
I tear up moss beds with bare hands
toss them into compost
along with perfectly edible beet greens
in their second or third season
with surprising small beets stacked
at the base of their stalks
like merry-go-round ponies on poles
rising above the woody mother root
hard and mottled as this grandmother’s fist
marbled inside like an old tree knot
white and red-grained
my shame forgiven ten minutes later
by a mother deer, queen
of the compost heap, who
startled and startling me
munched with her fawns
on blessings I thought
I’d wasted