by VA Smith
Watch me bathe myself in the cool
blues, grays, and sages of the living
room I have filled with muted
leathers, nubby, Klee-esque rugs,
Carrara marble poured over mantel
and counter.
When his stainless-steel bowl flies
into the refrigerator, bounces cole
slaw across the floor, confettis
cabinets with cabbage, my eyes
close to Yo Yo Ma bowing Bach’s
Cello Sonata in G Minor Prelude,
open to shut Mary Oliver’s
Dream Work.
I have havened home against
addiction, bi polarities political
and chemical, democracies and
partner promises that lean toward
falling, failing.
Slipping from chaos, I fast walk
intervals into October’s pumpkined
light, Earth’s axis tilting predictable
degrees further from our sun, its
shards shimmering through giant
maples, sturdy pines, feigning safety,
order.
VA Smith is an award-winning, retired teaching professor of English at Penn State and founder of Chancellor Writing Services. She’s dropped poetry into dozens of literary journals and anthologies, among them: Blue Lake Review, Southern Review, Gyroscope Review and Oyster River Pages. Kelsay Books published her first poetry collection, Biking Through the Stone Age, in May 2022. Her second collection, American Daughters, also published by Kelsay, will appear in January 2023. She is at work on a third collection titled Elsewhere, walking and biking, serving as a home chef/caterer, and loving on her friends, family, and dog.