Death

I am tired of saying good-by.

after Anne Sexton

I am tired of saying good-by.
I despise limping and tripping
up the stairs. I dread waiting
in hard, plastic chairs for grim
diagnoses, and now I know
how death begins. Like a poem
blurred by my thick
cat-eye glasses. Like a hummingbird
in my throat when I hear
my mother’s laughter
as she plucks a yellow honeysuckle
from the rusty gate in Galena,
pinches off its stem, pulls
the stamen through the bloom.
“Open your mouth,” she says to me.
“Catch the honey with your tongue.”

About the author

Ann Chinnis is the author of two poetry chapbooks—Poppet, My Poppet, released by Finishing Line Press in March 2024 and I Can Catch Anything, to be released in April 2025. She is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Her work has been published in Sky Island Journal, Nostos, Atlanta Review, Gyroscope and Crab Creek Review, among others. Ann studies at The Writers Studio with Philip Schultz. She is an Emergency Physician and a leadership coach and lives with her wife in Virginia Beach, Virginia.