Witnesses

The Henry Moore Sculpture Centre, Toronto, Canada

Their hollowed eyes stare 
at emptiness.
My eye threads a needle
into their enclosed
spaces, weaving between 
bent knees, elbows. 

Between solid hips,
drapery falls
into folds where I’d hide 
and crawl from shifting
dark shadows bringing life
to them once more.

They rise from the earth
like witnesses
to a life we once lived.
I hold onto them
in my dreams. A daybreak,
I walk with them.   

On Mt. Olympus,
wearing chitons,
they recline with keen eyes,
waiting to swoop down
and carry me in arms 
stronger than mine.

Paula Goldman's book, The Great Canopy, won the Gival Press Poetry award, and was honorable mention for the Independent Booksellers’ Award.  Her work has appeared in Across the Margin, Oyez Review, Slant, Briar Cliff Review, Calyx, Passager, Ekphrasis, Rattle, Prairie Schooner, Manhattanville Review, Cream City Review, Comstock Review, Harvard Review, The North American Review, Poet Lore, Poet Miscellany, Hawaii Pacific Review, Cæsura, and other magazines. She was first prize winner in INKWELL's (Manhattanville College) poetry competition and the Louisiana Literature Award for poetry. She holds an MA degree in Journalism from Marquette University and an MFA in Writing from Vermont College. Former reporter for The Milwaukee Journal, she served as a docent and lecturer at the Milwaukee Art Museum for 25 years. Late Love, a book of poems published by Kelsay Books in Utah appeared in February 2020. She lives in Milwaukee with her husband of 56 years, a marriage of streaming love and movies.