Category Archives: Poetry

Al things poetry – readings, media and poems

Winter Island, Salem

http://www.yourdailypoem.com

It is February and every wild thing is hungry.
The earth is tipped in white snow
caught like a jellyfish in a net of shadow.
 
The bay is cold as Jupiter,
ducks drifting like orphans
in a galaxy of ice.
 
But, today a sun, golden
as a loaf of bread
rises from the fire of the hearth.
 
Gulls scoop hooked beaks
into the sea in search of fish.
Like them, I sink in my teeth.
 
I tilt my face toward heaven
and fill the empty basket
of my heart with light.

Winter Prayer


That first winter in Vermont,
how dark and quiet the streets were
in the small town. How unkind.
Winding off without sidewalks
into desolate fields of snow, coyotes wailing
just beyond the widow’s lonely backyard grave.
One night, cloaked in solitude like a traveler
from another land, I followed one small sidewalk
through the town center, past the general store,
the toy shop, the B and B,
sliding my boots into the crisp footprints of others,
past houses with sleeping children
tucked behind closed doors
like angels in an advent calendar
until I came to a church lit up in the night,
a creche of painted figures beckoning.
Mary’s face beneath the blue veil was so inviting.
I stood there along with the shepherds
for nearly a half hour, watching
the baby with arms outstretched
as if to receive my winter prayer.

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Tutti a Tavola!

After the chemo

all you want to do is watch cooking shows.

We bask before the television

as before an oven on a cold day

watching Lidia toss onions into a pan of glittering olive oil.

Our noses strain to smell her pot of marinara simmering

as we drift to another kitchen far away,

Grandma in tennis shoes and a ruffled apron

layering slices of fried zucchini with sauce and parmesan.

Your taste buds these days have turned.

Ziti tastes like wood chips;

pizza like a paper bag.

Still, like a child you savor the sight of food

watching pizza commercials

eyes wide as pepperoni as you lament,

“Just look at that dripping cheese!”

Kale smoothies be damned,

we chase away the pain of the present

by recalling meals of the past

chanting recipes like prayers:

Shrimp Scampi with shallots and butter,

Veal Parmesan with marinara,

Pasta Fagioli with garlic and cannelloni beans,

and suddenly, with a pinch of basil,

a table springs up before us,

Great grandmother’s silver set beside

the gold-rimmed china with pink flowers.

So absorbed are we in culinary magic

that when Lidia announces her meal is finished

and calls to TV viewers

“Tutti a tavola! Come to the table!”

we are not surprised to see

our own ghosts of the hearth

creeping in from the room’s dark corners:

Great Grandma Anna and her sisters,

Uncle Tony, Louie, Nicodemo,

Fred and Laurel.

Smiling, they take their seats

and pick up their forks,

ready to taste,

to savor,

to embrace one more meal.

This poem appeared in the Paterson Literary Review June 2021

What I Wanted When I Was Twelve

For Mom and Beth to move back home

For Dad to stop smoking

For him to be happy again

To be able to do a cartwheel like Tammy

To curl my bangs into a fan shape without burning my forehead

To know how to talk to boys

To get Mike Taylor to like me

To hold his hand during “Couples and Trios”

To skate backwards like that head-banger guy to Welcome to the Jungle

To know all the words to “Ice, Ice Baby”

A pair of Hammer pants

To start my own Babysitters Club.

C and C Music Factory’s single “Everybody Dance Now”

To dance like Sarah Jessica Parker in “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”

Frosty pink lipstick

A ride to the mall.

A “Coed Naked” t-shirt

For my chest to grow so I can stop pinning shoulder pads inside my bra

To sing like Wilson Phillips.

To watch all the Halloween movies

To not have to babysit my sister after school

To perfect dance moves with Tammy to Van Halen’s “Jump”

To be Becca from Life Goes On.

To see my poem published in the National Library of Poetry’s book (I paid $30).

To sit with Kathleen Kennedy at lunch

For fat Sabrina Wimbsatt to stop following me around

For Nicole Ellis not to stare at me on the bus with her snake eyes and say she’s gonna beat me up

For everyone to believe the name with hearts I wrote all over my books was really my boyfriend’s.

To stop crying so much

To go back to my old school

To go back to church

For Mom to leave Jim

To be able to see her again without us fighting

For her to understand why I’m mad at her

For Dad not to be gone so much

For it always to be like on car-rides to New Jersey when I have him to myself

To have him to myself

To have him

Round and Round

At the hospital like Persepolis I stepped
out of time’s familiar landscape
and left the light behind,
creeping down death’s long hallways,
past room after room, each one
a box holding within it a life honeycombed,
memories stored like the scent of clover
within a bale of winter hay.
Finally, I found you, lying still,
unable to speak. Staring into your eyes,
I saw my face caught like a moth
inside a glass,
my life beating inside your life,
your heart inside mine,
as we sat eye to eye
within my heart’s deepest chamber.
At ten you gave me a small brown box
that belonged to you as a child.
Inside was a smooth round stone
surrendered by the sea,
and a time-worn coin found buried
in your grandmother’s garden:
One child’s treasures passed to another
across time. The brown box disappeared
into the shadowy depths of my childhood,
lost in a move or swept away during the divorce.
Father, now that you’re gone,I long to take it in my hands,
to touch the coin and discover its ancient secrets,
to turn the stone round and round
rubbing away at the jagged edges of time like the sea
until I see you, a boy once again,
opening a drawer,
pulling out the brown box,
taking the stone into your hand,
turning it round and round.

Grasping

As we drew to a stop
in the white atrium’s light,
museum paintings swirled around us
like carousel horses,
manes flying
and his words were like mirrors
hung to distract,
yet I did not grow dizzy swirling
among pearls of light,
nor on the mesmerizing grind of calliope.
I reached for what was beneath;
I wanted the brass ring.
Leaning toward him I saw it
in his eye:
a skull staring back,
mute, grinning.

Things Lost, Things Found

We sat together on the couch that day
and didn’t speak of all you’d lost,
of the car you crashed in the grocery store parking lot weeks before,
the job you could no longer work,
the cancer that moved like a thief through your body,

stealing your bones, your breath, your blood.
We didn’t speak of the shadow of death,
the Psalm you read me as a child,
“Yay though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death I will fear no evil…”

We did not speak of fear,
but of small things that flickered
like birds across the TV screen.
After weeks on the couch,
you’d assembled yourself a kingdom,

Sour Patch Kids stashed in the table drawer,
remote planted beside your knee,
issues of Coin World within arm’s reach.
You’d grabbed one and thumbed through,
stopping at an ad for a Buffalo nickel.

“I need this one!” you said,
the shadowy valleys of your eyes filling with light.
Disappearing into the next room
you wrote a check and called the seller,
chatting for a few moments

as though the world weren’t ending,
as though you weren’t leaving it.

Returning to the couch,
your face beamed.
“What luck!” you said.
“I’ve been searching for that coin for years
and there it was,
there it was.”

            This poem first appeared on Poets Online, July 2020