Animal, Vegetable or Poem?
by Kathleen Serocki

you came all the way from
Tel Aviv to Sorrento
just for a tomato
not in sauce teeming with squid, mussels, or baby clams
not stuffed, under oil, or fragrant with basil
nor slathered with cheese
just a plain tomato

 

a
red
rotunda
orb of orbs
firm and weighty
to the hand
toothsome perfection
utter delight

 

later
back in the states
back in the everyday
out of the blue
out of the black nightshade
four a.m. fumbling for the phone
your voice small, faint and faraway
spanning oceanic spaces
buttressed between dreams

 

grapes dangle overhead
a small wooden table
so buoyant at first
then sinking many things
whirling
spinning softly
one leg at a time
disappears
under sapphire pulls
strands of silky seaweed collect
a cumulus
a shimmer of green

tasselling on the ocean floor

 

 

The Emerald Grotto
For some, memory is a Golden Opulence

Sundae glistening with edible gold leaf

poured over only the finest ice cream

draped in dark, rich chocolate.

Giddy with a long golden spoon

they dawdle and pick out exotic candied fruits,

pop out perfect marzipan cherries

like uncovering precious gems.

 

Others enter into your vast cavern

in a low boat with head down,

delving into your dark granite repository.

Each memory a unique stalactite

dangling in the pristine blue-green atmosphere.

Some growing rapidly by the second

in clinking crystal formations,

while others melt away imperceptibly.

Fractured surfaces and layered encrustations distort

making some too painful to look at.

Sharp, pointed stalagmite spikes

poke up through the water

crossed like drawn swords to stop you.

 

         *                   *                   *

 

Memory a disheveled room

inhabited by bats and hungry beggars

flying in and out, forgetting

and whirling remembrances.

Backward and forward sinuosities

asleep hanging upside down by their claws

like ripe fruit to be picked from its branch.

Shrill cries and pleasures

like summer tides let loose inside the grotto.

 

KATHLEEN SEROCKI is a UMass graduate and a former artist turned writer. She recently received Special Mention in The Heartland Review’s 2009 Joy Bale Boone Poetry Prize and Honorable Mention in the 2009 Connecticut River Review Poetry Contest. Her poems have appeared in The Heartland Review, The Lilliput Review and Beanfeast. Kathleen got married in Sicily and climbed a volcano on her honeymoon.

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