Brennan, Stephanie

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

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