PAT ANDRUS

 

A Round

 

—For the Youth Leading Black Lives Matter

 

In this spirit of protest time

possess the morning’s strength

and follow both new and full moons

grazing across our skies.

 

And when you see the stars

remember the days you shined.

Take that into the galaxies

of planets and strides you are.

 

Sisters

 

The storm grazed our house,

a thunderous awake it caused me.

And my sisters—all three—

thought the earth through with us.

My sisters, in their girl teen world

believed the gods

were calling them home,

and not like the one we lived in.

 

The morning came ripe,

the nasturtiums scenting little pockets

of air around the clay-packed soil.

And when the storm had passed,

our mother, our father, found

faith in the minor cracks,

the less than fierce after rains.

 

In the noon heat, after the storm,

the winds, the darkened sky,

my sisters decided the world was fair.

Their geniuses appeared where I

could measure up to the brains

and song power each wore

on their jeans, their aproned skirts,

even their saddle shoes.

 

So much has passed:

a family of families, births,

graduations, funerals.

In the dark now,

after the night storms

the day’s birth and noon sun,

a melody slips into my covers

where still the sisters

read their fairy tales.

 

And I?

A moment of wholeness

makes my bed together

as the night hawks

and the whippoorwills 

give grace for my attended sleep,

my dreams now dressed with

a sound of perfume,

of purple seasons,

of sisters...

 

Miscarriage Fragment

 

oh little one

why did you

not stay together

or fight my bruising blood

that broke you apart

sending pieces of you

(and me)

to splatter

onto hospital’s

starched,

bone-white sheets?

 

PAT ANDRUS

 

PAT ANDRUS: An MFA graduate of Goddard College, Pat Andrus’ works include a letterpress chapbook Daughter (Olivewood), Old Woman of Irish Blood, a collection partially funded by the NEA (Open Hand Publishing) and her most recent collection Fragments of the Universe (Blue Vortex Publishers).  Her poems have recently appeared or are forthcoming in Writers Resist, Summation 20/21 and the 27th Annual Border Voices Anthology Springtime in Paradise.