April’s prompt from YCP is, “In my heart, I knew….”
Linda C. Brown
Documentary
This photo is empty
The house, too. No one home.
The refrigerator empty
no milk,
no lettuce
or tomatoes
no bread
or brisket
scraps all thrown away
a once greasy frying pan
washed, dried, put away
forgotten.
In the garage no blue Buick
with out-of-state plates
no lawn mower caked
with dried Bermuda grass,
no pruning sheers
or edging tools, rusted
abandoned they now hang
in a stranger’s storage shed.
The cement floor has been
swept clean of rainbows
stains scrubbed clean and dry.
In this photo no family
gathers around a mahogany table
no canapés sit on silver trays
no circles of wine on white tablecloths.
No lipstick smears on bone china cups.
What remains? A glossy 4×6
of nothing, faded memories
of a life that might have been.
Elaine Smith
A sneakstorm
after Maxine Kumin
is a March rain shower
comes while you’re sleeping.
You hear it, maybe, if your sleep is restless.
Or maybe not. Only, if not,
it slips into your dreams.
The sky is clear when you go to bed,
but you wake knowing it has come and gone.
It must have rattled the roof
fallen past the open window,
trees soughing
eaves dripping.
Or you know because you smell
damp earth in the air before
you’re quite awake.
Or really, you know only later,
after the morning rush
when you see
darkened earth in the flower beds,
darkened wood of the porch.
These sneak storm dreams refresh the day,
dreams of grief and loss,
a liquid change in the present moment,
sap-like,
always too little, always unremembered,
not at your bidding but never exhausted,
unstaunched as rising tree sap
greening the peach snag.