oars shipped
a long look back
at last year
Author: Lesley Anne Swanson
Lesley Anne Swanson strives to write musically, using words and images that linger, especially when read aloud. In 2016 her work was honored with the top award of the Japan Tanka Poets Society.
She lives in eastern Pennsylvania.
refugees everywhere . . .
lone planets wander
without a sun
a handful of stars
in the garden pail
fingers dripping
I offer them
to you someone’s jacket
beside the trail
warming days
more war news
the slow bleed
of hibiscus tea
(Originally published in Mariposa #34, Spring 2016).
cactus blossoms holding on to hope
blizzard conditions
signs of life
in the bread dough
honey-cool melon tasting of a hundred hives
express take-out
all the way home
nothing but red lights
the sharp pop
of cooling lids
prickly pear jam
supernova. . .
the years it took me
to see the light
(Originally published in Mariposa #34)
a grid of white squares
on the calendar
doing life
snowbound . . .
down to the last cup
of birdseed
history hobbling across the cobblestones