Category: Poetry

A blue name needled into the skin.
The overlong man washed—bathed even
In bedroom gleam.
Jacques, French,
Hand-poked tattoos, Polish nose
Flaxen from a pink flame, sativa hydroponic.
Hasselhoff reincarnate.
Jacques wipes his acrylic nose with watercolor
Under his fingernails.
He has no idea.
“Do you like citrus or florals?”
Both, but I love
Your musk. White sock club is
White hot forever for him.
Buzzcut, basketball shorts,
Mesh boring into fresh linen.
I can’t be in here,
Your room, the dark cobalt locker room
Where we go deeper with every drip from
The faulty showerhead faucet.
No, I can’t wear mesh, I wear
Lace.
Lemongrass limps on his lower
lip drawling:
“How old are you?”
How old are
You?
Jacques, I need to get better
At spelling your name, oh,
Jacques,
Is there a ‘k’ before the ‘q’
(queue)?
Jacques, why do you
Only use disposable
Razors?
You’ve made me quite the archer,
Jacques, nocking my arrows before
Letting me shoot.
The growth, the apple seed sprouting
Up from my navel,
Irradiating your cupped hands.
Jacques, you blue marble bust.
Just decoration.

We spoke of empires, built from ruins––
shattered and extirpated childhoods.
But the dam of adulthood broke and left
us in shambles, we were lost in the shadows,
stuck beneath the weight of despair.
 
Together, from the ashes of destruction, we rose––
like phoenixes––we soared into the light.
In an instant, it melted away––
wax wings. Amidst the wreckage,
I was left alone.
 
I tried to piece together the home
we had dreamed of, only to watch it crumble
time and time again––a constant reminder
of my delinquency. Solitude found me
in the fragments––the life you left behind.
 
I wandered, searching through the unknowns
until I discovered resilient hands
that lifted me, that cradled the pieces
of the girl I was when I first grew weary––
the weight of plans that could never be.
 
These hands bore their own burdens––scars
that sang songs of survival.
Though our carnage wears different
faces, we rise anew, together,
from ruin.

Hair. Gray hair. Gray-white hair. Hair that you just had taken care of.

I walked you out to the dark blue Fiat Fiesta, worrying at every step. Down the stairs, along the stone pathway, all the way into the car. Worrying that you might trip and fall. You were so frail. You had a bad leg. Ricordi when I was twelve, we’d walk to mass together. I was always walking ahead of you, annoyed that you were so slow, and I had to get to mass early because I was an altar girl, but I wanted to be with you too. Then, when I stopped going you never asked, or prodded, or demanded to know why I wouldn’t go.

But I took you to the hairdresser like a religious event. Walking in, kneeling at the entrance with holy water pressed to your forehead, chest, shoulder to shoulder. Just like you, I dye my hair because you started to go gray so early. I inherited your genes, and at times I look in the mirror and see you in my smile, my eyes, my silvering hairs. Ricordi that day I came over and it took you longer to answer in your green and red paisley-patterned robe with your hair under a bonnet. And for some time, I didn’t realize that you were dyeing it, because I thought you were young, and you would be with me forever.

I remember when you stopped, and I started to notice your silver strands coming in and I asked you why and you just said Perché no?

Like Christmas mass, we went to the hairdresser. Just like a priest, doing his special sermons, serving the body of Christ and sending us in peace, she sat you down in the chair and I sat in the room watching. Waiting for the holy experience. She rigorously went through the steps of your haircare talking, and you’d laugh, and laugh, and you looked so pretty. And at the end, I praised and praised you and you smiled so big all the wrinkles showed but that just made you more beautiful. Ricordi that I took you home and you moved carefully to make sure your hair didn’t get ruined, and I walked you back into the house to make sure you were safe. I kissed you on the cheek and told you Ti voglio bene. Kneeling at the altar of my Nonna Maria.

And you said with a big smile Grazie, anch’io.

Pulling away from my body, too soon
To break out from these molecules, abide
In my steaming and venting to the moon,
Just as smoke signals on the mountainside,
My breath bitter, intoxicating smoke
(It hurts, expelling this dense, charcoal spew).
Gasping for purity, alas, you woke
To my smothering, enveloping you
In the unrav’ling spool of my esse.
I unwind more and more, like fine, silk cloth—
Soft, the typhoon of my mind unto thee;
The moon rises, soot muddies the sea’s froth.

Once more, I make mournful love to myself
And pray to the moon so she spares your health.

Winner of the Toni Morrison Day Creative Writing Contest 2025

is it strange wearing someone else’s name?
no
this isn’t simply someone’s name
this stands for hope

hope for safety
hope for a future
hope for return

hidden under the protection of my shirt
they hover just above my sternum
pieces I can clutch

I recognize that simple silver single ball chain
wrapped around passing necks
wearing their own pieces of others
some grasping hold of the one that was left
some hoping the second does not fulfill its purpose

Winner of the Toni Morrison Day Creative Writing Contest 2025

I am from lace veils and white dresses,
Generations of “in sickness and in health” in Italian-Polish tongues,
Strong women, Sunday dinners made with love,
Traditions that weave us together.
I am from the quick-witted and strong blue eyes of my Irish grandmother,
The matriarch who held us all,
An angel she became—a memory back she gained.
Christmas with presents scattered all over the house and full tables
Is now a Christmas with unraveled ribbons, empty chairs, and lost sisterhood.
Raised in la-la land,
A protective bubble of child-like wonder
Popped too early from mental illness under our roof,
I am the oldest sibling,
The house leans on me.
I’m from mirrors and scales,
Disney princesses and “beauty is pain,”
Chasing forever love and impossible standards.
I only learn in my late twenties to choose loving myself first.
From big circle to small,
I am from two friends who know me, heart and soul,
Where laughter and love are my dopamine.
True girlhood does exist, between the love I give, the self I lose.
I’m from dedication and hard work,
Exhaustion paid for in children’s laughter.
Work is my identity.
Under my roof there are eyes that speak where words fail,
Unconditional years of love on both sides of the rainbow bridge.
Maggie makes new paw prints in the snow.
I am from a community of dog lovers,
A safe space where we are seen,
Surrounded by people who share my language.
Within these gates it is easy to be me.
My mind tells a story through the eyes of a camera lens.
I am from creativity and femininity,
Dressing up with no place to go.
I am from summers of “Who wants to go to Seaside Park?”
Family memories of what was
Bring comfort like the warm sun dancing on your shoulders
And the sound of the waves.
I can rest now.

Winner of the Toni Morrison Day Creative Writing Contest 2025

The soft aroma of baby powder and lavender
Outweighed the moldy scent
Creeping from the basement.
A sweet, childish laugh
Bounced off empty walls,
Blending into the breeze
Of low-hanging ceiling fans.

A brief smile contorted into an outburst,
The house rattled in dismay,
And I, shaken to my core.
She welcomed in a ray of light
To fix the dimming bulbs.
Hope flickered through two dark orbs,
Searching for her.

I knew I couldn’t keep the little one away from her mother.

Destiny took shape in this
Dull household,
Fate brought warmth to the
Chilly atmosphere.
The younger image of me
Extended her heart
Towards the child
Nestled in my arms.

A soothing grin glistened
On brown lips,
Gentle caresses onto
Chubby cheeks,
Blissful squeals of
Motherly adoration.

My daughter and grandchild
Enveloped me in their love.
A quick gaze of reassurance.
“I’m home, mom.”

November’s first dawn, 
no one has yet decided to walk the foreshore. 
The Sun teases his arrival behind the horizon 
with an assortment of vapor: 
gold and silver rings 
so the Ocean may don her favorites. 
Amidst this proposal 
from behind sand dunes, shadowy bodies emerge—  
was this the Mist’s trick?  
Two men pulling a rowboat 
laugh as their feet stomp over to the coast— 
they bear brittle oars the Ocean will use to pick her teeth. 
The bow cuts into her flowing flesh, 
paves a jagged path across her breasts. 

In the distance, a young girl approaches the tide. 
No one else is here for fear the Ocean 
will take her rage out on them. 
Before the frigid water can claw at her ankles, 
she dives in, swims hard. 
Her head buoys above the Ocean’s meniscus. 
Treading water— 
a primordial world below her kicking feet: 
ashamed experiments, ill-formed bastards— 
barely time to breathe between 
crest after crest washing over her head, 
drowning in the Ocean’s anguish. 
She dives, twists, and contorts in the callous embrace 
until she reaches shifting sands. 

The Ocean is the Moon’s disciple. 
She made her in her image. 
Yet while the Moon is offered poetry and prose, 
the Ocean receives piss and plastic. 
The girl brings her prayer, 
bows down at her feet, 
offers herself. 

Seagulls scurry across damp sand recently revealed 
after the Ocean pulled her skirt back in. 
One takes off over the crowd. 
None follow. 
The lone gull’s wings beat currents 
that move the restive Ocean. 
In turn, the waves gyre beyond control— 
where’s that girl in the undertow? 

A morning angel made anew— 
baptized in icy, boiling blood— 
breaks through thick floes, 
soars over the Atlantic. 
Finally, the Sun has risen.

I hit the lottery on my birthday. 
Two-dollar ticket 
four-dollar payout. 
I laughed. 
I finally had the upper hand 
on the devil. 

It wasn’t until that billion-dollar jackpot came around. 
I was freshly twenty 
despite feeling broken in. 
Craving more, 
my mother sent me into the convenience store—  
taxed lung cancer, 
canned heart failure, 
shiny, money-wasting cards 
you have to scratch with raw fingernails— 
and I found myself in a line, 
listening to stories of what people are gonna do with it. 

I used to do that. 
I was six years old  
my parents fantasizing about fortune, 
so we could all have a little more convenience 
a little more privacy. 
If we could be a little more fortunate. 

I bought the tickets my mom wanted 
and something for me too; 
A two-dollar scratch off— 
A fantasy that I could beat the devil 
who hypnotized those I love—  
My stubby nails screamed 
as latex ink compounded underneath them 
that would not come off for a few washes. 

There it was: nothing. 

I’d lost my leg-up 
and down to my knees I fell. 
Held in a chokehold of dreams, 
I thought I could beat him once more. 
To thumb pennies into his eyes, 
break glass, 
burst eardrums 
with the shrill of my victory. 

This will be the last time I meet him 
I dare not break our tie, whatever the odds.

“Miss Temple, why do you read by the inlet where the whales die?” My fourth-grade student cried. April 10^th 2020, I plunged back into my natural habitat. Gazing over the steel inlet rail, I observed an anomaly. Translucent ripples ripped into my quaint Manasquan seashore. Unripe sea glass nor plastic debris littered the dog beach bend. The water forced me to be reflective; typically, the teal tint tainted and obscured our interaction. Three weeks of required absenteeism: Covid, you were a killer of people, but a healer for nature. Our forced reclusion reduced pollution’s inclusion.  

Engines are silenced. 
No boats bother the blessed sea. 
Waves sing gleefully.  

Hardly three years later, we are worse than pre-disease. Speculations of new disruptions disseminate on the internet. Wind turbines, oil spills, reckless ships, a plethora of possibilities could be to blame. Nevertheless, we humans can be inhumane. Carcasses carried away, creating momentary concern. News outlets report that human contacts may have caused 43 whales’ deaths in 2022. The Snapple bottle lying next to the recently deceased whale should snap us out of our ignorant delusions. Our reemergence shouldn’t have been an imposition, placing the balance of nature in another untangling food chain condition.  

Engines igniting— 
Why bother the blessed sea? 
Waves sing, mournfully.