Donna Freeman
Donna Freeman has been writing poetry since age 12. Wilderness House Literary Review and Blue Lake Review have published Donna’s poetry online. In 2004 she was a runner up in a poetry contest offered by The Providence Journal in RI. She has continued writing and has taken online poetry courses at the University of RI. She has also participated in poetry workshops. When not writing poetry, Donna works as a clinical social worker and volunteers as a tutor for English as a second language. Originally a New Yorker she now lives in southern Rhode
Island.
Island.
If I Had Known
If I had known this was the last time
you would say my name
I would have kept that sound from your lips
pressed inside my mind
and played its music back
as a lullaby
to soothe my pain
where I stand in the darkness
when you are gone.
If I had known this was the last time
you could say my name,
I would have put my lips to your face
and mouthed the letters against your cheek
sharing what you once gave as mine.
If I had known this was the last time
the moment would have been stilled
and time would have stopped for you and for me
and memory would hold
what is now only a shadow
in the dusk of our day.
If I had known
but I did not.
You could have told me
but you would not.
If I had known this was the last time
you would say my name
I would have kept that sound from your lips
pressed inside my mind
and played its music back
as a lullaby
to soothe my pain
where I stand in the darkness
when you are gone.
If I had known this was the last time
you could say my name,
I would have put my lips to your face
and mouthed the letters against your cheek
sharing what you once gave as mine.
If I had known this was the last time
the moment would have been stilled
and time would have stopped for you and for me
and memory would hold
what is now only a shadow
in the dusk of our day.
If I had known
but I did not.
You could have told me
but you would not.
