On Dreams
They crowd in,
hogging all the room in my sleep,
not life-altering or technicolor
like you read about in inspirational memoirs–
more like busted puzzle pieces,
or wrappers tossed from open car windows
to flitter across the roads,
or jumble sales in church basements
where it is upstairs that Light
burns through the magnificent windows.
.
No Touching or Photography Allowed
…………………………….Orchard House, Concord, Massachusetts
I became the girl wanting only
to breathe the air that carried
the same atoms as their breath,
to see what they daily saw:
Louisa’s green mood pillow on the parlor couch,
Marmee’s bedroom quilt, the yellowed keys
of sweet Lizzie’s melodeon. I wanted to brush my palm
against the breadboard sister May etched with flames
from the fireplace poker.
In Louisa’s bedroom, I stood in the back
while our passionate guide entranced
us with details. I reached
behind me, placed my palm
on the white wooden shelf Bronson cut
and hung off the wall for her:
a half-moon desk
where immortality wrote itself–
I touched it.
.
Basketball and Poetry
Witness the power forward who might be mistaken
for a moving skyscraper as he scales the court
in seemingly six steps for the dunk and then the roar
Witness the poet in her morning hour,
steam from her coffee swirling into her eyes as she hovers
between stillness and form, on the verge of the dive.
.
Three Acorns from Emily’s Yard
I pocketed them that day
the tour guide was not looking.
I nodded to myself that she
would not mind for me to hold
in my palm and carry home
such Possibility.
© Andrea Potos
Andrea Potos is the author of several poetry collections, most recently Marrow of Summer and Mothershell, both from Kelsay Books. Another collection entitled Her Joy Becomes will be published by Fernwood Press.
The Loch Raven Review 