love poem – Sarah Stoltzfus Allen

Middle-ish Age

or, Sonnet 2, if Old Bill Shakes had Considered Reality

When forty winters crown my aging head
and crow’s feet line the smile around my eyes,
my youth will start its journey down the drain,
and I don’t care who knows that I am old.
And if you ask me where my beauty lies
and where the perk of youth has run off to,
I’ll pull my glasses down my nose and free
the pent-up truth I’ve kept behind my teeth:
we’re sold the lie that beauty should endure
without a single dimple on our skin,
but beauty lies in pure embodiment
of simple joy in every season spent.
I do not covet spring, its blooming rose,
I’m well content in autumn’s golden clothes.

***

I have been responding to and rewriting Shakespeare’s sonnets as a writing exercise. It’s been challenging and fun and makes me feel a bit…uh…conceited (is that the right word?). Anyway, I hope you love it! Read the original Sonnet 2 here.

Dirty Laundry

You are grass-stained knees
and ketchup drips on church pants,
primary colored paint splashes on
school uniforms and socks that smell
like only little boy feet can smell,

red wine on a favorite blouse,
amorous stains on bed sheets,
sweat and motor oil soaked into
t-shirt cotton,
the good towels that have cleaned up
pirate bath time adventures.

You are dirt and love and tears,
blood and water mixing,
flowing into all things new.

@ssapoetry
You can hold this poem in your very own hands by preording my chapbook, The Darks and the Lights: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/the-darks-and-the-lights-by-sarah-stoltzfus-allen/ #poetry #poem #carpoetry #morning #fyp #poetrytok #writing #poetrylover #poet #poetrystatus #dirtylaundry
♬ original sound – Sarah Stoltzfus Allen

I hope you enjoyed this poem from my upcoming book, The Darks and the Lights. And I really hope you remember that beautiful things can be found in the ordinary. I really hope Tuesday is being nice. Try and make it a good one!

Make sure you preorder your very own copy and lock in that discounted rate!

Deity

Her hair floated around her face,
a barely there breeze lifting
each golden strand.
It caught in the crinkles
of her laughing eyes, in her eyelashes.

This is why I hate wearing my hair down,
she said, huffing and swiping the hair
away from her face, tucking it behind
her ear. Her Earrings caught the evening sun,
and for a moment she was a goddess of old,
full of love and light, wisdom and mirth;
a deity I could happily fall to my knees for.

“I love you,” I said, breath caught somewhere
between my lungs and my mouth.
I love you, she whispered, dropping her hands
to her sides. I love you, too.

And before she could blink, I had my hands
in her hair and my lips on her smile.

Photo by Thu00e1i Huu1ef3nh on Pexels.com

Sweeping Superstitions

Don’t let nobody sweep under your feet, she said
as I pulled my feet up onto the couch,
placing my little girl chin on my knees.
“Why can’t you sweep under my feet?” I asked.
I want to see you married someday, my girl.

From her brown corduroy couch, I watched
as she swept her floors, a wooden handled
straw broom for the kitchen and dining room,
and a rainbow vacuum for the carpets.
She sang and swept. Swept and sang.

I was there the day the salesman sold
her the promise of clean carpets
and an easier time keeping her house in order.
It seemed to me she worked just as hard
with the rainbow as she had before.

The day I was moving out of my university dorm
and into my first apartment, she visited me.
She held out a brand-new broom and dustpan.
Don’t take your old broom into your new house, she said.
Let the old dirt stay where it is.

When everyone had cleared out of my new place,
I swept and sang. Sang and swept.
I surveyed my kitchen floors just like she had
and decided it was probably for the best
that I’d left the old dirt in my old life.

Math and Science

Love is geometry.
Or maybe it is all biology
and electric pulses in our brains.
Possibly algebra where love equals
(a+b2)/2
or something like that some other
poet has calculated to the enth degree.

Whatever it is, I find myself swirling
and so thoroughly steeped
in the euphoria, that I have no need
of oxygen or breathing or anything whatsoever
if it is not him and his overwhelming goodness.

Coffee Creamer

I wasn’t looking, and she added too much creamer.
I drank the coffee anyway,
the sweet liquid coating

my teeth and tongue with a layer
of slick sugar I wouldn’t be able to rid
myself of without a thorough brushing.

Her forearms tensed and flexed
as she balled her nightgown in her fists
and in her lap trying to hide the anxiety,

and I wondered how we had come to this place:
the serving coffee and being anxious
and not meeting each other’s gaze.

We need to talk, she said,
just as I was standing to leave.

I sat back down and waited.

Summer Jewels

She could often be found
admiring the fruits of her labor
in her fully stocked pantry –
mason jars of green beans, corn,
tomato juice, tomato sauce, various soups.
She adjusted their stacked-up lines,
shining jewels in summer colors
waiting to be enjoyed once the cold came in.

Six months after my granny died,
I watched my mother from her kitchen table,
She held the last of the green beans,
having rationed the last ten jars,
knowing that when they were gone
there would be no replacement beans
coming this summer.

Opening the jar, she let tears fall.
Silvery jewels of grief slipping silently
down her cheeks and onto her apron.
She held them up to her nose,
and then quickly dumped them
into the pot on the stove.

The last of the summer jewels
graced our Sunday lunch plates
for a final time.

Trash Birds

Don’t call them trash birds,
Granny always said while she walked
towards Walmart and watched the flock
circle and swoop from the neon sign
to the parked cars to the discarded
French fries and spilled milk shakes.
We don’t mock one of God’s creatures
for doing what they were designed to do.

I can’t count the names thrown my way,
can’t count the ways they have all crumpled
and collected against my ribs
and throat like pieces of garbage
flung from a speeding car on I-64:
too much, not enough, slut, crazy, needy,
attention-seeking, a waste of time, bitch,
not good enough, unfit
to name a few.

So, I never call them trash birds.
I call them by their proper name
and watch with delight when they take flight
as one dancing phantom,
dark against the fiery October sky.

In my dreams, each grackle in the plague
settles on my shoulders and picks up a name,
swallows it down, unhurt and nourished –
doing what they were designed to do.

Summer Tomatoes

Slicing summer tomatoes in a sleepy kitchen,
she hummed something that could
have been a hundred years old
or a song that played last night on the radio.
Golden waves obscured her face,
and I couldn’t see the smile I knew was there.
Couldn’t see the way her lips turned down
at the corners in delightful, exquisite mischief.

Dripping fingers arranged thick slices
on a plate too formal for this moment,
the crunch of salt and pepper grinders
breaking the silent, ardent air.

When she tipped her head back, popped
a ruby half-slice between her kiss-swollen lips
I couldn’t help but make my way to her.
I caught her smile then, a laughing look that said
every word my heart needed, and then some.
Soft curves fit against all my angles
and I wanted summer tomatoes,
the press of her warm, sleep-quiet body against mine
for the rest of my life.

Goldenrod and Ironweed

Why are you crying, my love?

She wiped her eyes,
sniffled her nose,
and lifted her gaze to the window
above the sink.

The goldenrod and ironweed are blooming,
she said, slipping her hands into soapy water.
The earth is settling her melancholy
deep into my bones,
unfurling her funeral flowers alongside
roads and in the low, wet places of the hills,
one last majestic sight
before fading into rust and gold.

One last burst of color to hold
during the long, bleak of winter.

That is the most poetic way I have ever heard
anyone describe their allergies, my love.