Lynn

2024-01-17 09:24 pm

though it has been so long, i have not forgotten you. 
i have searched for you among the crowded shelves of bookshops, the cobbled displays of libraries, the take-one-leave-one boxes scattered through town. 
i have dug deep in my jacket pockets for the notes and coins needed to take you home with me.
i have cradled you close to me underneath my coat while i am waiting for the 6:58 bus.
i have found you in tulip bulbs peeking above the soul for the sun, late august thunderstorms that pelted our new apartment, the january wind that brings ice and chapped hands.

you have made sure your spine stands straighter when i roam through each aisle, saturated and dewey with books.
you have pushed the dimes and nickels into my grasping fingers so that we may spend our time together that much quicker.
you have squeezed me hard as we step off the bus at 7:34.
you have flung yourself through the sky and earth to find me in the smallest of stolen moments. you kiss my hands and my head and flush them rosy with emotion. 
you have not forgotten me either, it seems.

Lynn

2022-08-17 02:15 am

here i lie (not yet asleep)
in my childhood bedroom (my soul to keep)
under my childhood quilt (made by my grandmother)
holding my childhood cat (could there by any other?)
and listening
to the cicadas cry over (mourn)
the loss of my sister (come morn)
when she moves away (just to our college town)
into her tiny, adulthood dorm (someday to wear a cap and gown)
with her adulthood newfound friends(i thought it was just the four of us)
and her adulthood future portends (why couldn't it have always been the four of us?)
and listening
to her professors drone on (just like the cicada)
as she compiles reports, and essays, in jargon (raw data)
and-
and-
and i wonder, will she miss me too?

Lynn

2022-06-10 05:31 pm

espresso bean in the espresso machine
located here in the mezzanine
we serve your drinks with sweetness and cream
a fountain of everlasting caffeine.

espresso bean in the espresso machine
and not just coffee, we
also serve cuisine!
the chocolate brownie is a hit with the teens
huddled together near the register screen.

espresso bean in the espresso machine
here the noise is quite serene
amidst those coming and going, a calm in-between
come on over! help set the scene!

espresso bean in the espresso machine
week after month, to form a routine
yet the tasks of today remain unseen
‘tis the life of those on the library team.

Lynn

2021-04-01 11:42 pm

sycophantic silhouette
stalks into the room and
the woman who casts it brings death, immortal doom
she bids disguise fall when the man sees her through
never a dame, but bluegreenbrown eyes, same as you

you, who lives their life by ritual, routine
will never see the cold, red blood or the glistening sheen of
sweat on the brow of a new, soft corpse
or the embers of the flame that drive you north
your cadence keeps you pliant, your rhyme bids you no further!
what drove you to this, to poetry, to murder?

as the blade bids adieu through the back of his skull
and the red of his head grows increasingly dull
and the light bleeds out of the sword in his eye
‘any woman can see him orgasm, but how many see him die?’