Poetry, May 2002
No Wall
A child in the night lying on the top bunk
Sees through the roof of the galaxy in a dream
Of a dream, feeling secure as a witness to
Her utter inconsequence in the face of the stars.
She naively prays every summer night for
No rain so to play baseball everyday and
Witnesses the worst drought in North Carolina history as
She watches the corn dry burnt on her way to
The South Carolina coast for vacation.
She drifts with the Earth across the Nation to
The impermanence of adobe homes and almost
Guiltily shoulders responsibility for the Southern drought but
Now she withers happily in the Arizona desert where moonless night,
The September season of shooting stars over trolleys
Switchbacking the mesa walls stretches to the dawn.
She is ecstatic that she has not reached the
Limits of language as if the world was still flat
And cannot continue to begin.
—Carolyn D. Hildebrandt
A September Evening
"Sometime very soon..."
I left such silliness
with hesitation
beneath my expression,
yet intrusive expectations
followed my footsteps—
Just silliness,
(Would you really be there?)
Of course not.
Kings and queens
lived only in cards,
But the lingering summer
breezed over my skin
as I looked
toward the door
of that future place,
Crystal messages,
Alive on a September evening
when you and tomorrow
finally found me.
—Francesca Signorelli
The Voyage
the broken emeralds
of lost continents
struggle to stray
onto a hindered shore,
barely escaping tired pirates
who exploit themselves,
as well -
the shattered jewels
burn with bent sunlight
like prisms of sorrow's ghost
and knotted in ocean weeds
like a confused treasure
that yesterday could not have sent,
A dizzying tide
sprays its acid
over the misty stones
haunted by the triumph
of earthly betrayal
and forever echoed in the
clap of a weary sail.
—Francesca Signorelli
A Moment
European eyes; wider than the space between you and I,
smothered in excitement, in the lights that swarm,
and in your mouth so warm; a tiny mint of white,
dissolves into holy water, on the soft tissue of your tongue.
—Sean Thomas McDonnell
Copyright © 2002 by the individual authors
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