Her thin arm beckoned from a threadworn coat of no distinct colour, while the soft rain fell as a blessing over all, blurring the torn and whole together into a gentle bath of tender hues tinged with a sort of silveriness whenever the sun briefly glowed. Her blue-veined hand offered every passerby the stump of a garish pink bouquet of rose buds: "Please, please buy a rose!" she called against the damp breeze.
Her hand brushed the waves
Parting them for the hundredth time
Searching for him,
For shadows of promise:
Grey turbulent sea
Revealed no image
Blank darkness reflected
Only her disconsolate self.
Judith Cody's poetry won awards from Atlantic Monthly and Amelia magazines, was put forward for the Lyric Recovery Award, received several honorable mentions from the Emily Dickinson Poetry Award, among others. One of her poems, together with its historical chronicles, was inducted into the permanent collection of the Smithsonian Institution's American History Museum. Her poems are published or are forthcoming in: Nimrod, New York Quarterly, South Carolina Poetry Review, Poet Lore, Cumberland Poetry Review, Xavier Review, Texas Review, Poem, Primavera, Phoebe, Louisville Review, Madison Review, Fox Cry Review, Eureka Literary Magazine, South Carolina Review, Confluence, Chaffin Review, Distillery, Soundings East, Phantasmagoria, Westview, Carquinez Poetry Review, Bathyspheric Review, and many others.