Five Poems by Lara Dolphin

 

Pray For Me Saint Brigid

 

Grotty and unwell

little fire in my gut

has me zeroed to the bone

 

Before you were saint

you were human

you were woman

 

Born a slave –

free my body

with a miracle of care

 

Restore my health;

without pain or bleeding

preserve my chastity

 

Disappear this life

that I may live

to atone and glorify God

 

A Jawn for the New Year

 

There’s a bushel of apples in the kitchen,

but friends declined due to weather.

Truthfully, I am overwhelmed.

Perhaps I will put on music to schnitz by.

What kind of next level madness

is it to peel and core and cut and dry,

to give over hours of toil

to be dazzled by treats of the harvest

deep in midwinter

to bear hope that some sweetness will keep

 

Turritopsis Dohrnii Visits The Woods Hole Science Aquarium

 

When you can begin your life over

and over

you’ve got some time to pass

 

ever been to Barnstable County–

why not plan a trip

to look at creatures behind the glass

 

do you miss the wild oceans

wanting what might have been

the Portuguese call it saudade

 

if you could start again

then you would see

how close you are to immortality

 

Edward Hopper’s Google Autocomplete Predicts Cape Cod

 

Cape Cod home, style, renovation before and after, near me

I can capture the light off the side-gabled roof and dormers

in watercolour over graphite on cream wove paper

 

Cape Cod cocktail, recipe, variations

Cranberry red with a lime wedge

brightly lit in a darkened studio

 

Cape Cod lighthouse, Nauset, at sunset

Half-light and shade, chiaroscuro

sketched in my mind to be worked out later on canvas

 

Cape Cod black dog, topsail schooner

gliding toward the outermost edge of the horizon

where saturated colours dip into the deep blue beyond

 

Surrender

 

The ocean at midday, high tide

waves heaving against the shore

and me, a child,

lost in play

gazing at the water

 

Suddenly the hum and roar

of something flying low

loops nearer

leaving a trail

in the cloudless, windless sky

 

What?

my only reference–

black fumes from

a green witch’s

smoky broom

 

A glance at dad

asleep in the chair,

and mom nearby

holding brother’s hand

sets me at my ease

 

And so I return

to building castles

with giant moats

under the banner

God is Great

Lara Dolphin - A native of Pennsylvania, Lara Dolphin is an attorney, nurse, wife and mom of four amazing kids. Her first chapbook, In Search Of The Wondrous Whole, was published by Alien Buddha Press. Her most recent chapbook, Chronicle Of Lost Moments, is available from Dancing Girl Press.