By: Arvilla Fee

Building Bridges

hand me a plank;
I’ll hand you a saw;
together we will build
a bridge across this chasm;
we’ll all be brothers and sisters,
sweating together beneath a sun
hung in the universe for all mankind,
drinking water from our father’s wells;
we will remove the shards of hate
and bind up every wound,
acknowledging all blood is red
and thus in need of healing.

Boating Days

We bask in the shimmering rays
of the late afternoon sun,
half-baked, skin saturated
with summer.
The boat bobs on the glass-blue
lake—and I squint at a heron
fishing from the reedy bank.
I wonder if he can hear the sound
of Johnny Cash’s deep voice
rumbling through the speakers.
Another boat passes us,
sending waves of wake slapping
against the fiberglass sides,
and I’m almost rocked to sleep.
This is the life, I think—
this swaying, this rhythmic motion
that will give me wobbly sea legs
long after I’m back on land.

Baker’s Cabinet

If I close my eyes, I can still see Gram
standing in front of the baker’s cabinet
wearing her red and white checked apron,
flattening a lump of dough with a wooden
rolling pin—a speck of flour on her nose;
she’d let me crimp the crust edges and add
the ripe-red summer strawberries, sweet
enough to eat without a drop of sugar;
how many times had I opened drawers
and doors to put things away, to get things
out, standing on tiptoes to reach shelves
taller than my gangly ten-year-old self?
Gram is long gone, but the baker’s cabinet
remains, still in the same place in her kitchen;
it would be unwieldy to move, and yet—
if it could be moved, if my mother asked me
if I wanted it—would I take it? Or would I raise
my eyes to heaven and beg Gram to forgive me
for my too-modern kitchen,
for rushing to the supermarket
to buy a store-made pie?

Writer’s Space

pen to page I press with all my might,
as if the ink can bleed away my pain;
I’ll cast my tears into the starry night,
let them fall back down as dismal rain;

I’ll curl my back inside a crescent moon,
cast fishing line into the Milky sea;
the temple of my heart now lies in ruins,
everything I thought would be can’t be

the face you showed was only partly true;
I couldn’t see the lies behind the smile;
the truth now overshadows what I knew,
I’ll live among the comets for a while.

The Introverted Extrovert

Pardon me if I say no;
I can’t go to the movies,
can’t host a party,
can’t purchase your candles
or your cookware;
I’d rather eat at home.
My people meter
has expired,
and I have no spare change.
So I’ll regroup,
rest both mind and spirit,
and someday I’ll say yes.
Someday
I’ll put a little extro on my intro
and rejoin the human race.

The Fall of Us

I can see your breath
in the gray pre-dawn
and draw my robe tightly
around my frame;
spring is but a memory—
walks in the park, candles
on the dining room table;
summer, too, has passed,
cotton sheets grown cold
between two distant bodies;
I stare at golden leaves
now curling at the edges,
like your mouth’s cruel grin;
tomorrow blooms will wilt
beneath fall’s first bitter frost.

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Arvilla Fee teaches English and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling and never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other.