Marybeth Rua-Larsen

Happy

Mom – you always made the case for tears
of happiness, that you could be so filled
with joy that waterworks would flow, distilled
and silent, maybe, but with a force that sears
through sadness and let you revel in the cheers
of each child’s college graduation, your self-willed
trip to Paris, your gift to you, the twilled
delight of your girl’s wedding dress – it steers
you forward, but toward a future you won’t see,
and stubborn you gave cancer just two days
of grief, insisting happy helped you speak
with hope. Your wish for us? Find ecstasy.
You would not live to meet your grandchild’s gaze
but pressed his softest blanket to your cheek.

Marybeth Rua-Larsen’s poems and flash fiction have appeared in Magma, Eclectica Magazine, Flash Frontier, MacQueen’s Quinterly and Crannóg, among others. She won the Luso-American Fellowship for the DISQUIET International Literary Program and was a Hawthornden Fellow. Recently, she was a Writer-in-Residence at the historic Linden Place in Bristol, RI. Her chapbook Nothing In-Between is available from Barefoot Muse Press.