SOLSTICE

It's summer solstice, the longest day of year, I want the light to last but it's fading. Shadow is everywhere. The sun is
sinking into the horizon behind the trees, and I can't see anymore what I came to see. There are thick bushes laden with berries. Plump black ones, tender to the touch. Bruised, they bleed a dark bluish juice on my fingers. I move to the next bush and reach for sweet red berries, not quite ripe but leaving the promise of sugar to come. The ground is moist and gives way beneath my feet. The smell of rotting earth and leaves teases my nostrils. Exciting me. Reminscent me of days spent in the woods when the sun burned down and the stillness was suddenly disturbed by thundering clouds and lightening. Then later, long after the rain stopped, the pungent seductive smell of earth lingered.

BODY LANGUAGE

Hear my body talk
My body speaks to
your body from across
the room aching
for your touch

At nite I awaken
several times
imagining your hands
upon my breasts
my body heats
I touch myself

Hunger and holding back
b-4 the rain, and after
we remain the same
all looks no caresses
Just desire stirred

my nipples tingle
my breasts yearn
for your solitary touch
Wrap me in your arms
provide solace for my dreams
Find a home for my lust
which you’ve reawakened
with a thirst I didn’t
realize still existed

You’ve reawakened
my girlhood charm
my lust, while you fight
your urges and mine

There you stand
Here I am
You’re too far away
to be blamed
for a lovers quarrel

Make your jokes
Pick me like a daisy
I do - I don’t,
yesterday was not today
I don’t know
who I am
Here I stand

MY MOTHER

My mother is an artist
She designs embroidery
- a dying art - and creates
any design she desires
her hands instruments
of a higher force

She explains to me
how this one is a fleur-de-lis
and how in the region
where we come from
it is made differently
from someplace else

With only one eye
the other is glass
she sees more than I do
She is dying
my heart is unsteady
I am powerless
a witness to her fate

My mother’s hands create
embroidery with many
names and meanings
She patiently explains
the subtle meanings
behind each motif

I listened in awe
while she explained
all of this to me
I had nothing to say

Now there is even
less to say as
Each day brings her
closer to her end
I drown in helplessness

She tells us she is sick, not stupid
she knows her death is near
If only I could relieve her suffering
I would do so until the end

She alternates between begging for death
then apologizes for doing this
She is my mother, she worries
about me, my mental health
how I will handle her death instead

I think about her hands flying quickly
the needle moving as tho she has 3 eyes
The pattern suddenly emerging
Then the design is near complete
like the course of my mother’s life


*This poem is published at Poetry Kite Anthology where only invited poets are published. Poetry Kite is administered by Jim Bennet.