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| My Poetry |
| Catholic School When the bell rang, we raced, out of breath, to form straight lines - stretching from the shortest to the tallest. Hastily we looked down to see if our black shoes were shining our gray skirts and white blouses ironed, our blue ties straight, and our nails clipped. At just the right moment, we folded our hands, closed our eyes, and said the Lord's prayer. As the morning sun shone on us we also tried to ignore the other soft sounds - not wanting to believe that some short ones had found themselves behind our growing backs. |
| Good Night The bed is still slightly warm. Even the pillow guards enviously the hollow where just now your head was lovingly cradled. Ever since they told me I've tried to be gentle with you. I've held the spoon precisely against the mouth of the bottle, tilting it so that the thick liquid flowed without falling. I have followed instructions to the T and wondered: how did they come to know your heart so well? Last night too I had fluffed out the pillow (much against its wishes) and made sure that it was comfortably underneath your head; the quilts wrapped securely around your shoulders - just as I had once made sure that my teddy bears and dolls were warmly tucked in on frosty winter evenings, so that when sleep rendered us unawake they wouldn't be cold in the dead of the night when the Kingdom of Toys came alive. |
| Denouement "Don't clip your toe-nails at night" my mother used to say. In my neighborhood boys fell for fragile girls with silky hair and large eyes. I used to stamp on cockroaches and crush their guts out. Suppers were always salt free, calorie conscious affairs. In the afternoons we drank misty glasses of iced tea. I chewed loudly on the cubes. Lizards crawled on our walls and sometimes fell on my bed. In the fridge, Mom's lipsticks melted away silently - and painlessly. |
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| A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why.... Percy Bysshe Shelley A Defence of Poetry |
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| These poems have been published in Femina, and are under copyright. |
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