Expanded Poems- Sixth & Seventh Rows
Our love part I.
Samantha Ruotolo
The night of our first date
You smoked your first cigarette
You undid the cellophane
Took the first cigarette to the left of the pack
Put it between your fingers
And grabbed your lighter
I watched the flame catch fire
You took the cigarette and tapped it
I watched the ashes
Slowly
Fall onto my dress
Creating a hole
At the bottom left corner
In the middle of the floral pattern
You coughed
Dropped the cigarette
And tended to my dress
"I'll never smoke again"
You said
And dug the heel of your converse
Into the cracked cement, where the cigarette laid
20 years later
I found that same pack of Kent
In your Converse that you wore to our first date
With only one cigarette missing
Next to my dress
With the hole at the bottom left corner
You lit a fire
In my heart
I hope it never burns out
Bees to Flower
Eleanor Myers
I like my coffee bitter
Its rawest form the healthiest
Hard to get used to
Some are overwhelmed by its bareness
I indulge in its ability to open my eyes
The way this drug should taste
It coats my tongue and throat with honesty
A little sugar doesn't do much harm
As long as the sharpness isn't blurred
I like my coffee sweet
The way she stirs milk
Hiding it's dark qualities
Enveloping it in sugar
Only the way she can do
Mama, why can no one else make coffee the same as you?
When I sip
Suddenly I'm not tall enough to see over the table
I need to sit with my legs beneath me
Reaching across for another slice of warm buttered bread
Poofy hair and wide-eyed
Only understanding saccharine
Slake
I place my empty cup down
Plucked from purity
My illusions are transparent
I like my coffee bitter
Because sugar and milk remind me too much of what it isn't