The hand that strokes the sleeping cheek will throb
with self-control: a pulsing power station.
Kindness is titanium. So plant.
The seed will burrow up through dirt and time
as air becomes a tempter’s kiss and rain
prophetic. Allow these things and life will burst
and course through hand-strewn ashes. Blind river.
What burns grows back, and a promise is a promise,
so why not reap—but only keep what’s yours.
Click here to read Felicia Sanzari Chernesky on the origin of the poem.
Image: “Cuppa” by Craig Morey, licensed under CC 2.0.
Felicia Sanzari Chernesky is a longtime editor, slowly publishing poet, and author of six picture books, including From Apple Trees to Cider, Please! and The Boy Who Said Nonsense (Albert Whitman & Company). In 2018 she moved away from the masthead of an academic quarterly to work with people who want to share their stories, ideas, and poems in print. Her poem “Mother Tongue” received a 2020 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Awards honorable mention. Her fiction has been nominated for a 2021 Pushcart Prize and Best Microfiction Award. She lives with her family in Flemington, New Jersey. Find her online at www.feliciachernesky.com.
Latest posts by Felicia Sanzari Chernesky (see all)
- What Grandma Read at the Bottom of My Cup - May 7, 2021