If you caught
yesterday's post, you know I won't be writing anything new until I finish editing
The Novel. This one I wrote for a class at the University of Baltimore when I was studying under the marvelous
Kendra Kopelke. If I remember correctly, she didn't much like the "reptile belly" part, but I was too enamored of the internal alliteraton to revise it. What do you think?
By the way, if you like this poem, or poetry in general, I encourage you to read and comment on the small
catalog of poems I've posted here thus far. I will be focusing on poetry during
my next workshop, and I'd appreciate your input.
Ceremony
Winter slithers its ice-blooded
reptile belly over my feet
slices at my toes - I do a little
dance, my Ritual: tight fists balled
around my thumbs, thrust
deep in my pockets, shuffle
left, shuffle right, shuffle left
throwing my face at the
drizzling spittle
of a malevolent sky.
The sky has a grey soul
today. No mercy.
I understand the winter
sky for I too have been separated
from my sun; I know her pain
her fury, burning frigid. I too
have spit on the world.
It is a bone brittle
winter day on a bus
stop in SoWeBo
and I wish I could feel
my toes again. I wish
there was snow on the ground
to calm me. I wish
I were blanketed
in someone's embrace.
But I do not wish that
the sky would cease.
The sky has her rites
& I have mine.