Pick a Card, Any Card, But Beware of What You Might See
Where to start, when seven
cards look up at you after the
robo -dealer has spit out
one’s daily game of solitaire?
Generally, I scan from left to right.
But today I think, what if that first card,
the first I touch will somehow
imprint on my fingers,
give direction for my day or
reveal my inner thoughts?
Today, one of the cards looking up
at me is the queen of spades.
Is that me?
Next to her lies the jack of diamonds.
Is he my son?
Today, against my usual form,
I pick him up first,
and to lay him on my avatar’s heart
where any son belongs.
I cannot bear to move those cards again
now that I’ve made them him and me
I will not be able to bear separating them
at game’s end. It would be, for me,
like loosing my dear boy all over again.
I turn off the computer
with the hope that
tomorrow, the computer
will deal me a different hand.
Freezing Time with Pussywillow Branches
Before most of the world
in Pittsburgh knew
spring was on the way,
Pussywillow had sloughed
off the brown coats from its
plump, grey velvet kittensish nubs
We brought them
into the house to dry
in my aunt’s tall blue
waterless vase, where
winter’s dry house air “froze”
them as an array of soft grey
along brown sticks stems.
Those remaining on the plant,
Would, weeks from our picking,
shed their furry coats as days
warmed, allowing pale green tips
to reach out, forming small leaves
that waved in the wind all summer,
only to flee when cooler breezes came.
All of this progression stopped
for the stems in the blue vase,
now in my front hall, those same
stems my Aunt cut in that final February
in her own home. Her gift of sticks,
still arrayed with grey velvet,
reach out to me as I walk by,
whisper of moments long past,
thought gone, but actually
frozen in time, by my pussywillows.
Spotting a Splash of Red
Around the opposite side of the pond,
Amid a copious swath of green leaves
A single splash of red pokes out
Curious but tired from my walk
I decide it is some sort of rose, turn,
then, curiosity wins out and I circle
round to the place, where I discover
it is a fully blooming red canna lily,
bent by wind or a touch, so that instead of
standing tall and straight among those
surrounding green tongues, it’s stem is
broken, the blossom’s colours barely peeking out
From among those surrounding leaves and I
Realize suddenly that I am that flower,
A bit broken by time’s winds and hard pushes,
Not able to stand as tall and straight as when young,
I can still, even broken, bent, my words and I can
bloom in beauty, bright and red, if I will.
Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Internationally published as essayist, poet, short story writer, and novelist, she’s a two-time nominee (fiction and poetry) for Pushcart and Best of the Net, nominee for Western Peace Prize, and a 2022 runner-up in Robert Frost Competition. Her essays, poems, CNF, and fiction have appeared or are forthcoming in Impspired, One Art, Lothlorien, Ekphrastic Review, Verse Virtual, Gargoyle, Silver Birch, Yellow Mama, Mystery Tribune, Synkroniciti, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Pure Slush, several Murderous Ink Anthologies, and others. Her poetry chapbooks are Languid Lusciousness with Lemon, (Finishing Line on Amazon) and Feathers on Stone, (Main Street Rag from their bookstore). Joan Leotta performs folk and personal tales of food, family, strong women on stages across the country and in UK and Europe, teaches classes on writing and presenting, and offers a one woman show bringing Louisa May Alcott to today’s audiences. You can contact her at joanleotta@gmail.com
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