Threat
Julie Brooks Barbour
I walked through the rooms of my house slowly
with exaggerated movements. I could feel my pulse,
my breath, the skin against my muscles. I turned on the television:
threat of disease, threat of war. I listened to my breath,
my heart. I looked into the yard for an answer, something specific,
and saw only snow. I turned off the television.
I stopped pacing from room to room. I stood still
in the white light of winter, my heart like a living thing.
JULIE BROOKS BARBOUR is the author of Small Chimes (forthcoming from Aldrich Press in 2014) and a chapbook, Come To Me and Drink (Finishing Line Press, 2012). Her poems have appeared in Waccamaw, diode, Kestrel, storySouth, Connotation Press: An Online Artifact, The Rumpus, Rose Red Review, Escape Into Life, and on Verse Daily. She teaches at Lake Superior State University where she is co-editor of the journal Border Crossing.