Three Poems by Joan Leotta

 

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