I sit next to my brother on the wicker couch on the sun porch
a sock monkey on my lap.
There are 9 windows, the light of the late afternoon
streams in with the luster of glowing cream.
The edges of the windows, cracked paint peeling, closed
except for the one held open
by my can of pick-up sticks.
It is the perfect height to let in the salt air.
I want to play with my game so I pull on it
with my right hand and the window
slams shut on four fingers of my left hand.
My thumb is safe but I’m in shock by the abrupt slam.
Inside, a scream wants to form
and I think it does—
My father runs to me
lifts the window and admonishes me.
What I don’t know is that this is the last time that my father
will rescue me. That he will move deep inside of me
where the scream lives and he will stay there
still like a frozen lake or unmoving
like my brother and the sock monkey,
or this old photo, left and forgotten on the couch.
And I will always pull at things, hoping to get what’s mine.
It is the second day of March
and I smell daffodils in the air (too direct)
Okay, the essence of daffodils
permeates the air. (permeates is too many syllables and is too pretentious)
The essence of daffodils takes over (or dominates?) the air (nice use of
personification)
Or maybe the essence of daffodils captures the air (so is the air a prisoner
now?)
The essence of daffodils captures the air the way you captured my heart.
(now we’re getting to the meat of it, but who is “you”?)
(Back to dominates. I like the alliteration.)
The essence of daffodils dominates the air. (Forget you.)
I walk with the lonely sound of a bird’s song (what kind of bird is it?
Be specific. And what sort of sound? Is it a chirp, a shrill, a whistle, or a
repetitive toot?)
I walk with the repetitive toot of a sparrow’s song. (Maybe this is too
specific).
I walk alone with the sparrow’s song
The essence of daffodils dominates the air,
lingers and is gone like you, love. (too melodramatic).
Let’s start over:
It is the second day of March
And I smell daffodils and hear a bird’s song
It is Spring and my love is gone.
—Previously published in Eclipse
earned her MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Oregon, where she received
the graduate award in poetry and served as assistant poetry editor of the Northwest
Review. Her awards include the Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award, and honorable
mentions through the Lane Literary Guild, the Chester H. Jones National Poetry
Competition, and the Passaic Community College Poetry Center.
Her poems have appeared in literary journals such as Onthebus, Timberline Magazine,
Pacifica, Sculpture Gardens Review, and Tsunami; and in the anthologies,
New Los Angeles Poets (Bombshelter Press), Magee Park Poets [Friends
of the Carlsbad Library], A Gathering of Poets (Kent State University Press),
and Eclipse.
Currently, she serves on the board of California Poets in the Schools, an organization
that brings poets into classrooms K-12.