Abraham’s Second I found the roses you gave me tucked away in a book molded shut and dusted over on the top shelf, back corner. Into a dish chipped with age I crumpled the rose petals imagining potpourri from my fists it rained, and the crystal sparkled with every ping the shriveled stems made. Some carnation with the saturation faded, some wild natured with thorns cut serrated, their final resting place appeared marbled beautifully arranged and plated, camouflaged by the pain of your memory the scent pathetic and degraded.
I found the roses you gave me tucked away in a book, I melted a matchstick and dropped it in to the pile of your jaded remains. Your words bellow like signals in the smoke drifting up at me with bits of ashes, my fingers danced like a kite in the wind absorbing singes from your misguided lashes. I found the roses you gave me tucked away in a book. I set fire to their crippled bodies the way you had tried with my soul. - Nicole Jean Turner
Friend From Antiquit y Her mother’s coaxing fingers spin fine threads, Weave fine cloths, shape wet clay on a potter’s wheel. All loaded on ancient trade ships, sails hoisted, Setting sail for silk seas.
Ladara Mckinnon Power
sulfer, copper, brass
Greek gods visit me in a city From tenement row houses with windows on inside walls Early each morning girls burst outside to play.
Mediterranean sky – Bronze bells pealing. Together we run with the wind as quick as thought. Her flute – a hollowed bone – lilts as I play piano.
SANSKRIT
A welcome waits for me As I wait to grasp outstretched hands
My friend is illiterate, yet writes musical notes on cloth.
I resist as my mother pushes me out the door. Rather play With an ancient friend under the blue, lambent
26
Neighborhood girls laugh: She’s dead, dummy.
Surrounded by large stonewalls – Ox carts and chariots pass my windows. No one ever noticed the light shining within me, A child on fire unwrapping death.
*Alice Kober is the inspiration for this poem. - Linda Baldanzi
VOLUME 47
27