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My poem in Talking Writing

                          Prerequisite 

Recuerdos (Souvenirs)

 

I remember the gentle waves and how we put our feet in the water and sang.

The sky piercing blue. Seals came out to play on the rocks.

 

No one else was there.

The wind sunk to a whisper. Wine warmed by sun.

 

We passed the bottle back and forth. We laughed that we had slipped away.

Your eyes serious like the sea.

 

We broke bread and dipped it in olive oil.

Somewhere we had found a cracked dish.

 

We spit olive pits into the sand. My hands were oily,

I smeared them on my chapped feet.

 

Shells washed up in the surf.

You shook your wild hair, mammal or mermaid.

 

We had to shield our eyes from the sun spatter of the sea.

We knew when it was time to go.

 

I don’t remember anything we said. Only the sweetness of ripe tomato.

You always carried salt in your bag.

 

We were young. No one had died yet.

The stretch marks on my belly were iridescent.

 

My silver necklace had six turquoise stones and one had

fallen into the sea, my offering.

© 2018  Wendy Brown-Baez

first appeared in Water~Stone Review 2018

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My poem in The Wi​ld Word

Calypso

 

and when did it begin

this sweet necessity

to know you are listening to my

 

salt-spray heart, rhyming tide

of beach foam, the moon

calypsoing over my raft as it

 

sails away to a bay of palm

trees and white doves. I sent a

continuous signal of SOS

 

code of revelation and urgency

not knowing if your dial was

set to my frequency. Like a dolphin

 

rounding the curve of its young and

nosing to the surface, did I float

free of disappointment and vanity.

 

Did I think when you turned

away, the soul threaded between us

snapped clear? Could I count on a

 

dream to pull me back, did the

open sea take me, did a fierce wind

abscond with me, scowling like a

 

beautiful god determined to have his own way.

 

© 2009 Wendy Brown-Baez

first appeared in The Litchfield Review and published in Ceremonies of the Spirit

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A Poem for Oliver

 

Rocking next to the Christmas

tree, the child in my arms sleeps.

Colored lights slide over his face, our peace

as reverent as if we knelt in church.

 

Let his breath come even and soft, let him

fidget, held beyond waking and dreams.

Let his brightness never fade, let him be wild

as the stars slung across the sky.

 

Let him reap the fruits of love. In his tiny hand

sugar cookies leave a sticky sweet.

I think carefully on this world he

has entered. The TV tells me all

 

I need to know of grief: shattered homes

from last month’s storm, gunshots ring

out in bloodied streets, foreclosure notices point at

where a family once lived, moved on to some other sorrow.

 

But snuggled safe, this child knows

neither hunger nor fear.  The worst that has

happened is a tumble and a pinched thumb, a brother

leaving him behind a shut door.

 

I intend to keep it that way but we can’t keep him

from life. His heart will be broken—he will lose

and be lost, cry with rage and pity. But with

his brightness sweet around him I pray it is not too soon,  

 

and does not last any longer than he can bear.

published in Saint Paul Almanac Volume 13: A Path to Each Other

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