People can be like a bottle
shaken up, contents
inside the plain
brown
glass
building pressure –
quietly waiting
to explode.
Category Archives: poetry
in truth
wilt
She sent him a letter, sat
waiting for him to arrive.
Her sweaty palms stuck
to her skirt
as she smoothed it,
biting her lip watching
the window.
It was sad to see her
jump every time
she thought
she saw him
come in, smile
fading like a street
light at the turn
of night to morning.
who’s there?
the sound
of wind
some autumn
night
w
h
0
0
s
h
i
n
g
through
the skeleton
leaves
of an oak.
Enormously Solitary
Sometimes without cause after class,
I sit on the steps in the bluster amidst
the energy of autumn leaves blowing.
The expanse of the sky is humbling
and the stars seem as a dot to dot
that, like my thoughts, cannot be connected.
Tucked inside my black wool coat
the cold cannot touch me, hood raised,
I’m freed from feigning polite communication.
The sound of the wind in the trees, fills
my heart with something almost like love,
pushing out the loneliness which clings to me,
as static, an overwhelming current
of electricity that mutates rational thought.
Nights like this, enormously solitary,
I wish to be the wind, unburdened
and fearless, impossible to ground,
freed from the weight of all thought.
Asunder
We’ve moved through a year
parallel but unsynchronized,
separate although side by side;
from inquisitive awareness
of acquaintance to love-struck
blindness and back again,
hand-in-hand, half-drunk crossing
a shallow river over tumbled
rocks slippery with moss.
Me stumbling, you steadying,
My stranded hands illustrate
tempests for you, floating them off
incomplete as corked glass crossing
the sea only to turn to dust storms
upon opening. My calloused fingers
fail to fabricate our mosaics
from sand and saline, abstractions
you somehow complete; crafting
clarity from incongruity
No, But This One’s Different
It’s like when you stub your toe
and you know the pain is coming
but it takes a minute
for it to really hit.
It arrives
while I’m walking the kids
to the bus
and for now
I zip
it up, bite my lip
for the sake
of the children.
‘Mommy it’s cold’,
she says.
I smile
and nod my head
but I don’t feel it.
Back home
I make breakfast
for the babies,
serve It to them,
then quietly shut the bathroom door
and let it go
in long
shuddering
sobs for my
stupidity.
Stupidity
for believing
the things he said.
Stupidity for
believing in him.
Kiss Me
I bite the skin on my lips
so bad
I’ve discovered
lip skin
is a lot like sausage casing.
In this darkness
by the campfire glow
of the screen,
there’s a song
I like
on repeat
and some text
I should be reading.
There are some people
I know
or don’t
but love anyway.
Tonight
my stomach
is on fire, burning
off the things I’ve heard,
and seen.
Touching my mouth
absentmindedly I discover,
once again
goddammit,
my lips
are bleeding.
Each and Every Second of You
The entire reason I’m sitting here
right now at this antique desk
in a darkened room
in front of a glowing screen
in an uncomfortable chair that squeaks
each time I shift
my body to get comfortable,
is simply to say
that if I could do it all over
again, I would enjoy each and every second
of you more and worry about
losing you less.
And the longer I type the more
I wonder why
I would ruin this poem
by saying anything more.
My Needle, My Thread
My needle, my thread.
An ‘e’ here,
a ‘j’ over there,
sown into the line
a ‘p’ or a ‘q’.
Embroidered a rhyme,
mended a thought.
Now where did
I put that verb?
Pricked my finger
on a curse word,
dropped a tangled
thought,
unraveling on the floor!
My needle, my thread
and my words.
jenifer.wills 