Poetry

Bubble Wrap Mania
by Roberta A. McQueen, Amityville

My mother wraps
her miniature dachshund
in plastic bubble wrap
in lieu of a raincoat
carefully cutting slits
for ears and tail
Next, she’ll make matching
little booties
so she can tell he’s coming
when she hears
the popping sounds.

Grandmother
by Katharyn Howd Machan, Ithaca, NY

Summers and summers in
this garden,
and still each blossom of tomato
suprises with its skinny burst
of sun. And the squash, those
orange trumpets lazing everywhere,
leaves and tendrils sprawling across
every path I thought I’d cleared.
Beer cups, marigolds, flapping
aluminum pans on twisting cords:
who says a row of lettuce
and a line of beans can’t survive?
I’ve worked my hands in every
crevice of this place, called forth
colors and shapes no artist’s brush
could ever hope to conceive.
In my basket I carry the face
of the woman I have learned to be:
keeper of question, believer in love,
my hair a growing braided vine
beneath this bonnet of straw.

Rain
by Arlene Ang, Italy

Like fingers plucking at phantom
lint, it rarely knows when to stop.
We huddle under street awnings
like crows that fly low beneath
a mosquito net of clouds.
On the sidewalk a paper cup tap
dances the Morse code of lovers:
Drink deeply while the champagne
bubbles, leave lipstick on
the rim before it spills.
Like Rodin’s bronze shavings, rain
is little remembered when we kiss.

Sometimes a Poem...
by Gloria g. Murray, Deer Park

shakes us
like branches under the splintered
slash of sudden hail
rushes like a scream
down a spook house tunnel
opens our eyes
with the snap of a window shade
shocks our hearts
back to life
when we never knew
we weren’t breathing