My Sarah, My Sam

four poems by Alli Riechman-Bennett

My Sarah, My Sam

I miss the blanketed snow on the columbian streets and the constant hum of a lone

walker on the pavement

below the window that peaked

at the elementary school across the road.

I miss my Sarah, my Sam, the rose hushed by the blinding white of

the icy streets outside of the theatre.

I miss the planks laid in the

bookstore creaking despite my lightly placed steps.

I miss my family and the cold dark service entrance I stowed myself away in when the diner across the

street only allowed customers

And the rooftop’s bar that we snuck up to,

both,

one enclosed and the other not.

Spindle

It is the time of year during which it is inherently wise to check your hand before flicking the light switch. The heated spring air thaws ice and stretches spindled legs. Migrated and migrations return home through skies, through whittled notches exposing installation. Crooked winter translates to an unfurling, and life that was once curled to a halt regains the strength to shudder and breathe.

It is the time of year during which it is inherently wise to shake out your covers before falling through sleep again. Wicked little joints snuggle into the folds, chilling until night falls. Chittering and fussing come all the while, post-morning found ligaments in the crescent-shaped imprint in the once whitened now red-tinged sheets. Mumps and bumps circle and develop waiting for time.

It is the time of year during which it is inherently wise to kill the spider in his introduction.

Citrus

There is a sourness in the winter-canned citrus.

It is beneath the sugar-sucked peel, ridden of the pithiness.

It goes well on toast, a slice held against the light to capture cathedral light, and then placed on a child’s slice with butter-fingers stained iodine.

It must have been your steady hand on hers that had sealed these jars so fine,

gorgeous, almost idyllic, as the families we dream of over low-burning embers and popped chestnuts.

Because it couldn’t have been mine since I fill the jar too full every time.

Musty shelves take up salmon and catfish, though the salt is a bit too much to rid us of the divined slices.

It is beneath the wax table and beside the shallow shelf pantry where our salt stash hides, depleted with each harbor.

Our yellow token brings red bags of green herbage and blue eggs and the Amish coconut pie that weighs the bag unevenly to one side.

May cabbage packs pork with a broth bath and the heat goes all day because of the rain showers that have cooled down the house.

My hands packed the cabbage and held the tokens because it was tough and misplaced and cooked unevenly.

Mariah

There must be a kind of opposition to this already.

My letters have not been received on the account of slow postal service – or yourself.

Sweet winds beckon and snow catches scarves tucked over noses.

They breached summer hails which fanned cheerful sunflowers trampling one another – reaching for sunlight and to be gazed upon by those passing by. Their view of light, while nearly blinding, shallow their roots, making way for the next season’s crop.

Sweet winds, sweet winds, but nothing to pass between them. The silence was on my part; I wanted to sit and watch the sunflowers for a stretch. My tilling undone, I found a new garden.

Do you hear this?

Farming came naturally though words did not.

You told me once of a boy and a horse and expected me to be captivated by him rather. You told me of a motorized kitten and of hunters in the woods. Told me once of illness which came only after mine. Once of snow, of the crispness of the wind that still bites your nose. Of your hatred of David Byrne and the distaste you had for the hills leading up to class.

I offered, once, to help you with your words. You accused the priest of sleeping with the farmhand. We snuck over a garden wall and spoke of verses that others had whispered in our ears. He told me you sung to him, lyrics of Zimri and threatened Ahithophel, and that words were mirrored. It was wicked, but still I think you drew no shame on commissioned fairytales.

Treasure, as expected, only lasts a year’s time. Its glamour and its promises falter when the jeweler expects infinity but invests in fish. Wedding bells can ring, but a fox will always find its way through the henhouse.

I have stewed, that is for certain.

I’ve baked under your insolence

Grateful nearly two years; our farm has done well under the direction of a scarecrow.

Give it water and nurture the sheep as the priest and the farmhand have and set them free before you should decide to knit.