Chamomile
A boy I know died/ and I don’t know what to make of it/ he is my first/ frailty/ Storm clouds gather/ this is good/ I need balance inside and out/ I burn an omelette/ I remember his hands/ did he play piano?/ I never asked/ I do know/ he thought the Narnia books were better than Middle Earth/ and jerk chicken and Mountain Dew were nutritional supplements/ I forgive/ his honey-scented blasphemies/ the scuffs on his Keds/ crooked teeth gleaming/ as he laughed the way lightning leaves a taste in the air/ If I stand in the rain long enough/ no one will see the cost of his absence/ I was raised to be invincible/ a hard stone/ I thought you were too/ but no/ you prove I’m surrounded by breakable things/ unreliable and fleeting/ beautiful hexes broken and upheaved/ Will you forgive my thorny blasphemies/ my drift/ a steadfast scaffold/ meant for shelter/ from what cannot be ungleaned
Portrait Of a Woman In Her Right Mind1
A Cento
1Sources: Kwame Dawes, Morgan Parker, Rae Armantrout, Floetry, Caitlin Scarano, Charif Shanahan, Kaveh Akbar, Jennifer Tonge, Julia Alvarez, Tracy K. Smith
Sometimes you go outside and control is possible
but who doesn’t love a flame?
Can one life be
little monsterspulled-awake and flung?
Sometimes the harder surfaces are where we need to nest;
I wait each night for a self
I loved.
Racing
to live our natures out
every daya woman
thirstsfor something good and
doesn’t
back away from
the world.
I see no way to avoid
sunshine
swirling others with teeth.
I just wantwhat’s real;
skiesto brighten up my day
to bea comet
a thought
that saidGo ahead
set a house on fire.
Etta Griffin says
You are so much talent. Thank you for ALWAYS remembering me.
Sam Silva says
The worst way to break someone’s heart is by dying. I wish I could write poems as good as these.
Denise says
Your poems are stunning, Sam! I’m wuch a big admirer of your work.
Rochelle Jewel Shapiro says
I espcially admire the iterrupted-ness of thought in Chamomile, like the breathless sob of tragedy. Brava!