The Muse
I must have loved you
on those sad stone steps
of girlhood
by the grass fields
where we gathered every day
at lunchtime
I don't know if I can still love you
your face in glossy photos
tucked away long ago
my memory of your voice
becoming words in a poem
Today I envision you
touched by the bright beams
of a universal sun
which lights up your smile
whether I love you or not
Nostalgia
I miss you
like I will someday miss
this present moment
that there will be something
in a raven's cry
the trail of broken glass
and heart-shaped leaves
on the sunlit sidewalk
the dusty wind
and even this aloneness
that will one day
become something lost
like you
the grasslands of youth
with their ghastly green hue
now a field of nostalgia
The Gull Feather
What
do we do,
now
that I've found you
like
you knew I would?
Am
I just a white feather
falling
from the gull
above
the smoky city
to
slip off your shoulder
by
a brush of your hand?
So
light,
so
light is my touch,
that
you do not remember me,
and
I cannot bring us back
to
the same sky again.
Fairy Tale
Stand by me
on the balcony,
for I will give you a fairy tale life.
Don't be discouraged
by the dust on the concrete,
the pot of wilting poinsettias.
Behold the view of the city,
let every lit window
turn into a star for you,
my most deserving prince.
My mind is a rosebud,
ready to burst into a blossom,
and my heart a garden,
welcoming you at all times.
Rapunzel
I'm no Rapunzel,
with my scratchy voice of a blackbird,
and don't possess long tresses
for a lover to climb,
nor am I her sorceress stepmother.
I've shown my pockmarked face,
looking out the balcony gate,
and exposed the backs of my hands,
mottled with new age spots.
Dusk after dusk,
I sit in my second-story room,
listening to the crowd below me,
more agoraphobic than hopeful.
The men I've observed
are no suitors but more like muses,
though a few of them
have gazed back at me.
I've turned their raven hair into verses.
Jackie
Chou is a poet of Japanese short-form poetry and free verses from Southern
California. Her two collections of poems Finding My Heart in Love and Loss and
The Sorceress can be purchased on Amazon. Besides writing, she loves to
watch Jeopardy and talent competitions on TV.
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