Woman Around Town’s Editor Charlene Giannetti and writers for the website talk with the women and men making news in New York, Washington, D.C., and other cities around the world. Thanks to Ian Herman for his wonderful piano introduction.
grass rises from under the earth,
leaves bloom at the base of flowers,
trees burst greenly beneath a blue powder fog at dawn
where people wake softened by the echoes of chirps,
by the stream of light burning inside as deeply as coal
but first we must bear the violent blow of hail and frost,
the feast of rain and slush
reaching far into the crevices in rocks
not even the smallest finger
can graze those cracks and spaces
winter alone will fill those gaps,
flush out the debris,
melt it all the way to the root,
and only then –
like an elastic coil wire when stretched –
will spring return to shape.
When I look
beyond the dusty brush
and see a red branch shining
through a meadow of green,
or stumble upon a path
of tulips bending through
a rush of water, or struck
by an orange moon that must have wings
it flew so close–
like a spring spilling over
a terrace of rocks, I drift to you.
From beneath
the spit and drizzled sky
violet sea waves
froth and spray,
sandbars emerge along-shore
where a field of flowers tinsel
in the dusk like a cave of glowing worms,
and everything of beauty in this world,
I am yours.
Now, pay attention.
There’s something you must know:
If one day
you shy from the wind
that breathes our own language,
and fail to believe that words
no longer belong to you and I,
I swear
in every city there is water
I’ll drift along somewhere new.
But,
if each hour
each day
you love me as carefully as
time is measured,
hold me like you trapped the moon,
scoop the heat between us up in an
hour glass for you and I to feed on
and then swallow it whole, I will too.
Let the fire swim in your blood.
If you store it, I will too.
Our bones will burn together.
If you bare it, I will too.
Brittany DiGiacomo holds a BS in English Literature from Mercy College, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College, where she served as production editor at The Manhattanville Review. Currently, she is developing a novel of her experiences from the ages of seven to sixteen, titled The Pace of Nature, and a chapbook of poetry titled Broken Places.
Night hawks
and listless hours,
the flush of warmth
to flesh of petals
turns stale and crumble.
This year is no
different than others.
The sun passes
over the equator,
a copper button slips
through a slit.
A ring of light surrounds
half the earth, a mouth of
darkness closes on the other.
Brittany DiGiacomo holds a BS in English Literature from Mercy College, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College, where she served as production editor at The Manhattanville Review while earning her MFA.
I wake mid sleep from the soft slap of your hand.
Draped beads clack against the closet door as the waves
from the sound machine crash against
the water and I wonder about
that day I cut opened my chest
and placed my heart in your hands.
Can I trust you to cradle
it in your fingers,
mindful of not letting it fall?
And, if it did accidently
slip through the empty spaces
would you dive to catch it before
it splatters onto the ground?
I fall back asleep and dream we are blankets swimming
towards our rowboat. Paddles meet, a spark like your touch,
and we shoot from the root of spring and green shines
through the water.
But, what am I to do at night when the glisten in your eyes
turn beige, and the blush stroke of your hand hangs dry,
and we, still, flash noise into confetti, and like my heart
it splashes into pieces on top of the green water.
II
We lay still in the dark sky, blanket and sand
beneath us where smoke forms a cloud of uneven
sheets, towering, thickening in a whirlwind,
shaping a screen, a mirror,
as clear as a jasperjewel.
Among the stars there is no flutter or chatter
of birds this hour, just hills swelling with fog,
and in them the shadow of a man,
full of eyes that growl,
bearing thorns for teeth
and claws like icicles,
dripping wisps of venom.
III
You push me and I fall
into the water that flows
between the shallow paths.
Only it’s not water
it’s mud and you scrape me
off the bottom of your shoe.
Only it’s not mud
it’s leaves and like them
I crumble with your step.
Only it’s not leaves
it’s wind and it punches me
up from the ground
my eyes to meet yours
and I see you have let
each lash fill with dust
and who will wipe them clean
for you to see who
it is you are swatting away.
Brittany DiGiacomo holds a BS in English Literature from Mercy College, and an MFA in Creative Writing from Manhattanville College, where she served as production editor at The Manhattanville Review while earning her MFA.
