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Stephanie Brennan


Wildflowers

Remember when you proposed
that first time
my wheels started spinning
and I don’t mean the bicycle wheels
we were riding at the time
though I did speed up, didn’t I
put a little distance between us

I remember it was twilight
the sun an orange giant
on the horizon
cicadas ramped up their love songs
just for us

I was afraid you were needy
I didn’t want to take care of you
I wanted us to take care of each other

But you persevered, didn’t you
twice more you asked
the third time you got down
on one knee, so chivalrous,
so old-fashioned
you waited patiently for trust
to grow like those sunflowers
we planted that one year
they bowed their heads, remember
and smiled down at us

This morning I picked these wildflowers
quite a color combination, isn’t it
remember when we tossed the seeds
to the wind, laughing, I so loved your laugh
you brought me handfuls
every morning in summer
the house awash in color
and all that lavender
I thought it smelled like fresh laundry

It’s ironic, isn’t it
I worried you might be needy
and in the end I would have given anything
to take care of you
but your heart wouldn’t allow it
you did everything on your own terms
dying included

you’ve given me years
unimaginable years
enough to last me two lifetimes
yours and mine
enjoy these wildflowers
my darling
I’ll be back tomorrow

Memory Lane

Her new coffee cup is matte black
on the outside
the inside is a
beautiful porcelain of lime
green
the color of rice paddies
three weeks old

The particular shade of lime
reminds her
of the trip they took
to Vietnam, years ago

At a temple
a dozen children
wandered, begging
their tiny hands
palms up, pleaded
eventually she handed one
a few coins

And all the rest of them
cried
real tears
down their dirty
cheeks
and so she ran away
having no more coins

She sips that coffee
and thinks how angry
she’s been at her
husband, for years

It dawns on her
why now
that it’s the sound
of those children
crying
that slams doors
storms out of rooms
raises her voice
pleads
with palms up


​
Picture
Picture

Stephanie Brennan's profile

Three Tanka

in the night
I hear the dog’s too long nails
on the wood floor
it is said that fingernails
lengthen when you die

our old house
stuck in the burnished beams
so many words
lobbed haphazardly
while no one was listening

in the taxi
an exotic atmosphere
of smoke and scent
deja vu
and her mother’s secret

A Dream

I dreamed of

but wait, no one cares

about another’s dream

and the dead no longer dream

or do they

one day we’ll know

but back to my dream

that no one cares to hear

until their own dreams

materialize into conquered love

I’ll tell you anyway

you are free to listen, or not

I dreamed of a future,

impossible world

where women are not

shot up with heroin

between their toes while tied

to a bed, naked, the hulking

weight of a man with a wife

and two children, their photo
s
he proudly displays to other men

at the bar

grunts above the bound woman

who begs to be rescued

he pulls up his camouflage

trousers, straps on his rifle

there’s a war out there

someone’s got to fight it

he doesn’t look back at the girl

on the bed

she watches him leave

will forever remember his face

and all the others, etched, itched

I dreamed this girl traveled back
in time when she had nothing
to remember
nothing to forget

Micropoetry

white silk scarf 
adrift among the stars
Milky Way


hidden landscape 
an autumn shift chaperones
morning fog


a cloudburst

splatter of rain

followed by parasols


lanterns floating
carried by the current
of electric dreams

at the frog’s pond
I listen
to my reflection’s applause


in the mimosa
the tree and not the cocktail
a hummingbird sips


songbirds listen

the tree limb moans

with the weight of the moon


hydrangeas

regal globes of violet

bruised fruit

***

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