ALTON BAY VILLANELLE

Flimsy butter and russet leaves

twirl in eddies, like palms, indexes and thumbs

interlace.

Thwack of wood duck’s striated tail.

Flitter of sunfish. This lake ebbs and bubbles and hums.

Flimsy butter and russet leaves

coat the grease that spills from motorboats. Toads sing

with puffy glands. Spur-throated insects jaunt in mud,

interlace

their spindly legs. Ting.

Wind sharpens, the thumbs

of flimsy butter and russet leaves

join in whirlwind dance

atop dusk-light on water. The lithe swan

plucks at plumes, white bits interlace

and swirl as if writing. Spinning in gusts, wings

and thumbs

of flimsy butter and russet leaves

interlace.

---

Collector

attic scattered hay

searching beneath snarls of wood

for words unfurled purred

(in the y of yes,

and circle e, one arm curved

with flowers, and s)

in broken shingles.

rain gurgles, beams stow moisture.

I have spent my life

(Stuck in the twilight

is a tumble of bright stars

that blink up and down)

searching famous homes

–palms over smooth floor sanded

down to a softness

the side of your thumb–

carriage house in franklin rumored

to have housed him

(in the bottom drawer

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s bureau

gauze holds baby teeth)

said to have held her

(munch’s girl, signed lithograph

her frayed hair —)

void of memory,

useless tasks, I do not grieve

for my father.

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ROSAMARIA is an experimental playwright, poet and screenwriter from Boston, MA. She writes for both indoor and outdoor stages, and is an alum of Company One Theatre of Boston. Her latest poem, ‘Aunt Mariana’s Dream,’ was published in Truancy Magazine in 2019. Her short play, ZOE AND EDDIE: ZOOM, was included in the Smith and Kraus Anthology, Laughter is the Best Medicine, December 2021. Rosamaria is currently working with Nuisance Barking Productions filming her new project, a short horror, ‘Viola.’