Two Poems

Notes from the Dead

We leave messages on slips of skin
removed for biopsy, spelled out in the
spinning wheels of an overturned car, buried
beneath the grasping rasp of a drowning man.

It's the same message each time.
Why do you refuse to hear?

There is nothing to fear
from what we have become,
yet you stop your ears with the fluff of life.

You should be wrapped
in the rich fabric of existence.

Have you smelled the rusk-ripe scent of
mouldering leaves in a sunlit Autumn graveyard?
Wind skitters their paper corpses
across the headstones to remind us of life.

To warn you of death.


Beached Dreams
-- for those lost and those left behind

I remember daisy-dimpled knees
And bare feet on golden sand.
The fluid crook of an elbow as
Little hands lifted pebbles and shells,
Treasures from the tide.

Water gleamed blue, filling the distance;
Water fell in slow, clear drops into a pail.
The pail was yellow, or red,
Or yellow and red.
The water was quiet, benign.

I call you now --
Two, three, four times.
I can?t stop calling, though you always answer.
Everyone is fine, you say,
And I try to believe.

I don't tell you about the dreams,
Just the memories.
The pail was orange, you think.
You recall clumps of bubbled seaweed,
Their slick green smell tasting like fish.

I close my eyes to sleep
Seeing you on that beach
My bright fresh child; toes curled
Into damp sand under
Sunshine and giggles.

Awakened, I remember dreaming
Of a screaming sea, the world rushing away
In a torrent of angry brown, and of
Stretching in sleep for small fingers
That cannot be reached.

I pick up the phone and call you.

More About Ann Walters:

Ann Walters loves to fish for words. She dangles her fingers like live bait above the page, waiting for timid nibbles to become sharp-toothed piranha bites. When the hook is set with a tug and the line tautens, she takes a deep breath and lets the words pull her under.

You can email Ann at AnnWaltersWriter@comcast.net.