Stark lights flash on flesh
that bleeds out under the glare.
Is it just me out here?
I think I hear laughter but maybe,
it is just my echo bouncing
off the noiseless gloom,
causing my stumble out of the light.
Knees planted firmly on heartwood,
I look down into the hollow.
True self, solid form,
taunting me – its pallid echo.
My voice is a thunderstorm. The words –
pillars balanced for a millisecond
on the cusp of my lips, waiting
to topple over into your ear.
It becomes a tempest coiling
like ensnared vapor in a mirror.
Its pledge binds your heart –
promises of us, everlasting.
Now it trembles and quakes
like suppressed magma,
unable to express the seething ecstasy
that beats through my vena
at the thought of you.
You used to tend to roses,
scarlets and blondes,
as if they would bring back
the one that you lost to the sea.
Now all they are,
are reminders of the little hands
and little feet that came running
to help with your roses. Dashing off
to fight waves in timber boats
only once done tending fragile shoots.
Water baby you called him.
Barely able to stay on land
long enough to tend to your
sugar-tinged bouquet
mixing with sea-tinged air
that seemed to surround him always.
Passing with the seasons,
roots, stem, leaves and bulb.
Gardening gloves too large
for fingers that were as quick
to rip up weeds as they were
to thrust up sails.
Protected from rain and snow,
your rose garden flourished.
Nourished by your love,
your son blossomed.
Meticulous and proud you were,
carefully tending until they both grew strong.
Now steel has replaced wood and bullets, roses.
He no longer rips up wild plant, instead
he blasts apart his fellow man
with the same hands. Except
they’re not so little anymore.
All you have left are memories of times
when he tended your rose garden,
turning over hard earth with shovel,
the same earth he now destroys with bombs.
Spent are the lazy summers, in their place,
eternal winters where men are determined
by what they do and judged
by those they are sworn to protect.
Gone the delight of silky reds and sleek golds.
All too quickly their season ended.
Now your rose garden is windswept, trodden
its florid bursts diminished. Starving for light
but never thirsting for tears.
Pushing.
A heavy pressure
I’ve grown accustomed to
this weight pressing
into my stomach
Heavy breathing
comes with his
excursion.
Suffocating
heat on my neck,
my brow
In a few minutes
he will look down
puckered brow
he will withdraw
I will never hold you,
never count your perfect hands and toes
or smooth away your downy hair from your wrinkled face.
I will never feel your grip and be proud of your strength.
I will never hear you cry,
wanting what only I can give,
comfort, warmth, sustenance.
I will never decorate your nursery
or pick out baby clothes.
I will never know what you feel like, smell like,
your wants and needs.
I won’t watch you grow,
be proud at your achievements,
and worry for your safety.
I won’t cry on your first day of daycare,
wondering if you’ll be alright.
Share your first Christmas, overdo your first birthday.
Worry about sending you to college.
I will never sing to you until you fall asleep,
talk to you about drugs, sex, friendship, love,
laugh and cry with you.
Hear you call me mama for the first time.
I will never hug you, comfort you,
or get to teach you right from wrong.
I will never fret when you get your first cold,
your first crush, your first heartbreak.
I won’t even give you a name,
hear your heart beat for the first time,
or know whether you’re a boy or girl.
But I will remember you and keep you in my heart.
You will be remembered because I will never forget.
There once grew a rose on an isle
The only flower around for a mile
Then a breeze came by
And made the rose fly
Thoughts of its flight make me smile
There once was a man
He ate squid out of a can
He was sick a lot
Poem 8: From My Lips to Your Heart
Poem 9:
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Poem 12
Poem 13:
Poem 14: All the World’s a Stage
Poem 17:
Poem 18:
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Poem 21:
Poem 22:
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Poem 27:
Construction paper snowflakes fall off of classroom windows
like leaves from trees in autumn. Each snowflake melts
as it reaches the concrete ground. Buried
underneath a black woolen coat and red hat,
scarf and gloves, I appear rotund. Heavy
thuds of windows finding their sills grow fainter as I move away
from the red brick school building, rubbing frozen hands together
as I taste the bitter winds. I breathe in the sharp odor
of now stale cafeteria food seeping out of the grate
that I pass on my way home, its stench pressing heavily down
on me. St. Catherine of Genoa School is now a block away,
yet I can still see the snowflakes as they lay on the ground.
The freezing wind stills once I walk pass the cemetery,
and I’m chilling like a villain the rest of the way home.
As I reach my building, Tai tells her mother she is home,
as she will do for the next three years,
until she has her own set of keys. I enter the grainy hallway
and make my way to the living room. I am chilled to the bone,
the cold so deep my fingers and toes burn.
Lakay se kote ou mete tèt ou
The living room rug wraps itself around my cold feet until the numbness
melts away like snowflakes on an autumn day.
sayTaïna 