​POETRY 

"you never for a moment
had to doubt that you were loved"
                                          Photo by Weebly.com                                    

Gift Exchange
by Vivian Imperiale

​I look at the antique oval frame
hanging on my wall.
A gift that keeps drawing me to it
since your death.
I never look at it without thinking of you.
I touch it and feel a vibration
awakening my emotions.
 
The ornate brass frame alone
would have been a beautiful gift,
but what it showcases is wondrous.
Behind the convex glass
is a studio photograph
of a formally-posed little girl
with dark hair and features like mine.
From what you and I now know
of the eternal life of the human spirit,
I think you chose the gift
because something indescribable in you
recognized that girl you knew in the 1890s,
when you and I had different names.
 
I gave you nothing material
that impacted your life as this has mine.
But I did give you something intangible
that reached deep inside you.
Every single day you felt the familiar comfort
of one special gift from me.
You couldn’t hold it in your hand,
but you could hold it in your heart forever--
you never for a moment
had to doubt that you were loved.

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​​Vivian Imperiale has been viewing the world through a poet’s eye since she was six. She now writes to process her emotions around homelessness, mental health, connections with the spirit world, and the loss of the Light of her Life to AIDS long ago. Her poems and prose have been published online, in magazines, journals, newspapers and in books. She worked in real estate office administration and later in vocational rehabilitation with people facing mental health challenges.

Other works in this issue:
Fiction:
​A Quick Choice

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