My friend the sea showed me her bow,
then she rolled over and kissed me.

**© 2017 By Amanda Shelton

your voice comes in waves
and I listen out for your heart
give entrance to love
and fight against all division

She was made of a language
no one could hear
and hand written in perfect cursive
by the scripture of the stars
and made from the sea and salt
of an ocean lost in a tear
and the color of blood
gave her lips all
of its crimson and rage
and she was there
when dreams took their first step
out into the void of the time of nothing
and she weaved his heart
from the poetry of leaves
and his bones from the past
before death had a cloak or a reason
and his flesh from
the soft skin of her kisses
and she tied the string of his heart
to the beat of her own
and no matter the story
or time of eternity
they would find one another
in the pages and between the covers
of the dreams they would have
and the life they would share
as they would invent
and discover and write
and rewrite the books of love
in the language no ears could hear
or eyes could see
but ever heart would feel
in between their first and last beat

Odd color
of trifling light
Flitting petal
blue-purple-gray
emerged from asphalt's
heated slumber
to lead some airy way--

The road forgot

My grandparent's house
ten-kid-large and sinking
on the corners of remembrance
Remodeled now, to
...tenements

Honeycomb
...the remnants

Irish immigrant and Scottish orphan's child
She sang on the ferry
He fell in love
"The rest is the history of us...."
Wide
as the Connecticut River, grieving--
in their sunset....
____

This-- chair
is his

I am afraid of it-- of his learning
of the shiny badge pinned to his coat
of his dying...
Golden leather of it
soothes
his memory--
of another continent
of the once warmth-- of a distant hearth
so darkened now--
where his head once rested
...his hands
and,
I fear--
his mind....

I will not sit in it
as if he will come back, to take his place
I am afraid of him--
with his chair--
all worshipful and empty
like a high place, abandoned
to the heart attack
not for grandchild play
Seat of Authority
still stamped
beside the standing cold--
brass ashtray
Pipe smoke imagines itself
against the ceiling in the words
of Yates and Milton
He read to them
and somehow--

Paradise is Lost....
_____

This house is cold now-- even in the summer-- cold
Worn as only large families wear
The War
of waiting shadows
--four brothers who were spared

Anna Mae, in charge, too young,
worries in abrupt dark
of dinning room
Her face, haunted--
an archway-- ever empty
by the large and ghostly table
covered by its web of lace--
a bridal veil
of Catholic impossibility...
Anna Mae, held hostage by her thoughts
of darling, Sean...

Aunt Lil's “breakdown”
with cigarette and thorazine  
quaking quiet in her corner

Aunt Nell,
as blind as smart-*** hell
ironing, darning
with threads that thatch
the wounded socks
Holds it all together, scolding--
Brought the welcomed jelly donuts
sneered as Yankees clobbered Boston
all-- while drinking yellow ale

Uncle Eddie-- laughing hoarsely
cracks nuts over a wooden bowl