It’s been a day of shouting

by Marina Sofia

Coffee-ad family picture frayed and curled,

burnt up in blood-hot temper.

Sullen moods, sulk and whine, heave and lift

of bone-breaker words:

careless second of uttering,

then a lifetime of regret.

It’s been another day of failing…

my children, my ideal, myself

and all the compensatory cakes I bake

turn to sand in our mouths.

I’m left chasing words on empty beaches,

finding other people’s discarded treasures

more plentiful than shells.

I pick up a conch and pour my anguish in its ear.

I pour all my inadequacy into a jar,

screw on the jam-stained lid so tight

then fling it back into a sea just lukewarm.

So my poems are merely turgid,

my thoughts piddling, my family average.

We muddle on and on,

imperfect and random

victims of illusions

drunk on lost words.

Through Zoe’s Eyes

In Zoe’s eyes the birds don’t sing,

waters run too shallow.

If she could sleep those worries away for a

blink-length in time…

In Zoe’s hands winds drop bland,

little scabs tremble with memory.

She fears no strangers but each

is an intruder

she will not talk to.

She fills in gaps with words apt and inept.

Oilcloth strips she stuffs in the cracks,

when fissures are all she sees and walks on.

Answers rehearsed, eyes dart to the left:

clues we’ve noticed before and again.

Zoe’s skin bears the weight of all scars

her own and the world’s.

When you look through Zoe’s eyes

your world temperature turns down a notch.