Three Poems by Dawn Leas

May Day

Three years divorced.

I’m not sure the ink has dried,

but I can breathe again.

I don’t listen to jazz anymore

but crave

a calm whispering late into the night.

More prayer or meditation

than lament.

I dance at midnight under dark skies

with this gentle man

who welcomes my crying

at the heartbreak of unseen galaxies.

We get lost driving through World’s End,

a dirt road lined with trees

but aren’t worried

about finding our way back.

He searches for landmarks.

I keep my eyes on the curve of the road.


Birthday Eve

The night before your 27th birthday,

there’s no covert wrapping frenzy

in a walk-in closet.

No checking off party-planning tasks,

or last-minute runs to the store.

Like the birthday you were on the edge

of three declaring you wanted a red party.

Plates and napkins; pizza and Kool-Aid.

A Winnie-the-Pooh pirate cake.

The must-wear-red-to-attend invite.

All these years

between your tow-head turning

ash blond. Your voice dropping

deep as a well.

This year, there will be no birthday cake,

no quick trip to New York. You on the other

side of the continent now. At least there is only

land, lake, and mountains that divide us

unlike those dark years – blankets of silence,

heavy as a deep, wet snow.

Those phone calls from a stranger –

an R.A. just doing his job for free room&board –

announcing you were somewhere

I couldn’t reach.

The turn toward light.

And then when my own dark storm

lifted me into a tornado, your voice

pulling me back to ground.

A grown son, holding space for a mother’s grief.


Intersection

Remember how I wanted

into your world

so completely,

I hurricaned my life –

safe from any beast

other than myself.

The first act was a puzzle

riddled dialogue,

set changes tripping

over one another.

But, oh, that second act.

I found my way to the eye,

sent starlings out

to gather you.

It didn’t surprise me

that you rode in on lightning,

tumbled through rumbling

clouds. It was quiet here.

You liked quiet.

The storm played

out in punctuated

strobes of light.

No one ever thought

to look for us here

so we lived out life

under dark skies.

We called our shooting-star

offspring names

forgotten by the light of day.


Dawn Leas is the author of Take Something When You Go (Winter Goose Publishing 2016), and I Know When to Keep Quiet(Finishing Line Press, 2010). Her poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. She’s been a copywriter, English teacher and worked in higher education. Currently, she’s a writing coach and teaching artist for Arts in Education NEPA and the Philadelphia Arts in Education Program, partner organizations of the Pennsylvania Council of the Arts. Please visit www.thehammockwriter.com.