Find Me
seeking You in unexpected places
looking to recognise You in a lunchhour
..in a conversation, to know Your familiar hand
in a heartbeat, in a cityscape..
driving in smog-laden queues
in lonely offices, on a misty road. looking
at a prison, trying to escape my own
seeking You, I am lost
A Recipe for an Episcopalian
He used to leave the tomato leaves
To dry on the windowsill,
Separated,
The largest on the left,
Diminishing in size
Until there was just a scrap of green left,
The baby of the family.
Once dry, the leaves were so fragile
A strong gust of wind could crack them.
He put them into soups, sauces and
Sauerkraut: odd for an Episcopalian.
I remember his Sunday sermons,
Severe for a man who took such care
With the leaves of tomatoes.
But as we both grew older, and I learned
How the family had fallen apart,
I realized the importance of tomato leaves–
Making order out of chaos,
Letting the juices dry,
Keeping us all in line.
Jessica Anthony
Brooklyn, NY
“dear boy
this is girl. my head is full of knowledge and my heart is full of feeling and somewhere in the middle it all is meant to meet. i don’t know where. there is no mapbook. so i get in my car and i drive. i drive to the east and drink coffee with my mother. then i sit in a lecture room with people who have no idea how noisy it is inside my head. so i drive west and look at the waves crashing. i go central and drink coffee in a movie theatre watching someone else’s take on life. i laugh a lot and then it’s dark and i drive through and around the city. i watch the lights and find peace somewhere. i drive south and say goodbye to more friends at the airport. and then i drive north and i find myself at home, writing you again. “
The Distance Of A Dove
When you hold me in
a love-embrace
and tell me
I am a tiger,
full of heat and spark,
it cannot make it any less
true when you tell me –
I am a bird
flying out of grasp
or a fish
floating out of reach.
When you are far from me,
when I am moving farther
I think I like to be
the tiger best.
Close enough to taste your skin,
full of heat and spark.
But I think also you
prefer my likeness
at the safer distance of a dove.