
|
Ode to a Pablo Neruda Nude Neruda said Naked, you are as blue as a night in Cuba... |
Qasida for Hibiscus Red hibiscus-- my love laid before you in summer, a skirt open from twirling. Red hibiscus-- a dance among the dust in the streets, blood, not dark enough-- blood that doesn't match the crushed petals laid upon these streets. Red hibiscus-- the four chambers of the heart- separate yet entwined like the elements of wind, water, earth, fire. |
![]() |
Heather Ann Schmidt received her MFA in Poetry from National University, where she is currently working on her MA in English Literature. She teaches writing at Oakland Community College and ITT Technical Institute and is the publisher for recycled karma press. She also edits the online and print journal tinfoildresses. Her chapbooks are: Issa's Spider (Victorian Violet Press, 2010), Matryoshkas (Victorian Violet Press, 2010), The Bat's Lovesong: American Haiku (Crisis Chronicles Press, 2009), Channeling Isadora Duncan( Gold Wake Press, 2009) and Njaa (recycled karma press, 2008). Her books are: On Recalling Life Through the Eye of the Needle(Village Green Press, 2010) and The Owl & the Muse: Collected Tanka( recycled karma press, 2009); Forthcoming poetry collections are Transient Angels( Crisis Chronicles Press) and Red Hibiscus (Crisis Chronicles Press). Her website is HeatherAnnSchmidt.yolasite.com. |
Against the Midnight Every mother knowsWhen the moon is in the middle Of the night sky and Ursa Major Has passed over roofs To the other side of midnight. I know because I sleep lighter, Listening for my son’s gasping breath Or my daughter’s murmuring of a word She can’t say during the day. I know because I wade into the fear That surrounds their beds Up to my knees and I grab hold of it Wrestling against the midnight, The indigo clouds. To be a mother is to dissect fear And scoop its insides out Throwing them in the metal dish, Classifying them, numbering them And adding another index card To the catalog— To remember when they can’t So they don’t have to carry it Out into the world. |
In Ahkmatova's Shadow In Akhmatova's shadowI will stand in a chrysanthemum dress that loses its petals in the wind. I was a new bride once and prayed to the icons for a pure heart. Maybe I am a reincarnation of the woman in Kiev in 1909 who stood by the window watching a requiem take place on the ground below-- the grass remembering your footprints, the locust trees blooming white in your hands. |