August before Third Grade
In my neighborhood, Aretha Lee sits on the stoop
without her mother. She doesn’t
know I catch shooting stars
with my tongue. Stars are
pinwheel fire. I wrote that.
Joe, the mechanic, told me he makes his kids
work on Saturday because he knows my dad does
the same thing. Dad hates my pen. He says
my pen works overtime.
I didn’t know Joe noticed.
Zola still tries to catch water in a berry basket when
it rains. She looks confused when drops pool-up
on the berry bumps. She eats one or two,
three or four and gets slapped.
I’ve eaten whole sentences, but my taste runs to stars.
Tia Luz prays for everyone in the neighborhood. Smoke drifts
above the votive candle. I breathe fire because words singe blue,
smolder, flame. Sometimes my pen
sparks, and if I could write this in fire
I would write this in fire:
I am. I am. I am here.
without her mother. She doesn’t
know I catch shooting stars
with my tongue. Stars are
pinwheel fire. I wrote that.
Joe, the mechanic, told me he makes his kids
work on Saturday because he knows my dad does
the same thing. Dad hates my pen. He says
my pen works overtime.
I didn’t know Joe noticed.
Zola still tries to catch water in a berry basket when
it rains. She looks confused when drops pool-up
on the berry bumps. She eats one or two,
three or four and gets slapped.
I’ve eaten whole sentences, but my taste runs to stars.
Tia Luz prays for everyone in the neighborhood. Smoke drifts
above the votive candle. I breathe fire because words singe blue,
smolder, flame. Sometimes my pen
sparks, and if I could write this in fire
I would write this in fire:
I am. I am. I am here.
Melanie Perish is a working-class poet. Her poems have appeared in Sinister Wisdom, The Meadow, Calyx, Persimmon Tree, and other small press publications. Her poems were featured on the Nevada Humanities Heart to Heart website in December 2020 and November 2021. Desertwood (University of Nevada Pres, 1991), and di-vêrsé-city (Austin International Poetry Festival, 2017-2019) are anthologies that include her work. Passions & Gratitudes (Black Rock Press, 2011), The Fishing Poems (Chapbook, Meridian Press, 2017) and Foreign Voices, Native Tongues (Blurb/Single Wing Press, 2021) represent her current collections. Her poems owe a debt to a community of poets with whom she exchanges work. The generosity of these writers is beyond words.
Art: Horse at the House Across the Street, oil and acrylic on canvas, Rebecca Pyle