Diagnosed
Monique Bova
A swale, that word- gouging through the routed course
with a hard-edged decisiveness, leaving no option but to redirect, from all those years they told us
you were a late bloomer like we had been, once.
How did we not realize, naive as we were- calculating
genetics like 1+1 might come to something more-
that as we tabulated our health in benchmarks and growth
charts, as we weighed and measured and remembered
being the smallest in the class, some inherited piece of us moldered within you, unseen? Except there, in the singed hollows beneath your eyes, And here, in my own gut- that niggle of premonition; While in your gut- hidden ground fires seared holes in your potential to thrive. How did I not recognized- source that I was, who had split and spilled your headwaters
and surrendered you to the tug of topography- that it is not for the map
to command the flow? And who is this doctor to name the thing
without even looking at its face? No, he simply looked into yours-
beloved and familiar to me as the moon, rising full and pulling our tides since the first- until the trained eyes of science opened mine to your waning.
About the Author
Monique Bova lives with her family in a cottage on the edge of the Pigeon River State Forest. When not at her desk job she spends her time backpacking, swamp-tromping, contra dancing, learning to fly fish, tending a backyard garden, and raising two teenagers. An avid journaler and sometime poet, the forests, rivers, and beaver bottoms of The Pigeon are where Monique finds most of her rejuvenation and inspiration. She has previously been published in the 30th issue of Panoply Literary Zine, as well as the 8th and 9th editions of the Walloon Writer’s Review.