A badly broken memory,
My baby cries alot
two months in
lots of tears
little lungs screaming and begging
for some unknown something
people give me looks
some sympathetic
some aggravated
some horrified
but I
I am so happy to hear those little lungs breath and scream
cause I almost didn’t
and I would be crying for differnt reasons
Buzz off.
Go serve yourself.
We don’t need you, want you.
You need me to call you a cab?
Kick rocks.
Sink mold
loves the food
on the dishes
we left unwashed
over the long
weekend away
from home.
Dye your hair
all purple or
whitish greenish
purpley black.
Love me
with a disregard
for social norms.
Grow colonies
in the scraps
then wing microscopic
seeds into the air
that spread
and devour.
Love me sick. Love me squeamish.
I want to write about The Lady.
But all I can think about is you.
Short skirt, legs for days.
Last night your skin matched my memory,
sunset colored and made of silk.
Of course there’s a cage.
And of course there’s singing.
No one shows restraint without also
keeping score, pages marked
like a fever dream.
The soft fabric of secret drapes along
your body. You champing
the bit, a horse in heat. Or are you
writhing, a cold-blooded chamelon,
sunning for mercy?
The Lady keeps the key by a chain
in her frail pale hand.
(after William Steig’s Lady | About People, 1939)
yoyr brain rushes into
mystery light and
shadow in one
moment like
sitting on a bench in a yellow
wood you close your
eyes watch the
colors rush by to the beat of the
river
sunstreams change to red amethyst
mauve a cracked saffron
bowl wakes you from
images
you are still on a
bench in the
wood
no one knows where you are
You are more valuable than the sparrows.
— Matthew 10:31
(A Response to the name of my god is blue by Greg Friedman)
His name is a color that
is no color at all.
Is it just a trick of the light
the way sun shines
on the blue bird’s wings?
The way the red and green
iridescently sing soft puffs
on the hummingbird’s neck?
I have forgotten the steps
that dance across my eyes,
the sighs I hear when
clouds part the skies.
I have lost the touch
of His hand in mine
My heart lept alive
once dancing in time
with the beat of wings
as lilting birds sing
answering and calling,
listening, listening, never falling.
Alissa Sammarco
June 4, 2023
