Poems by Laura A. Lionello of Logan Square

Following are just a few poems by Laura A. Lionello from an upcoming collection, Panic Kit, to be published soon by Weak Creature Press in Los Angeles! I met Rich, a friend of Laura's, while on the bus en route to work. Usually folks are reading the Red Eye or staring into space, thus I couldn't resist asking Rich about the big stack of poems on his lap. Laura, pictured, lives in Logan Square. You can read more of her poems here.




The Dream

In the dream I wanted a child so badly

that I invented one.

I carried my dummy child up and down the bleached

aisles of the grocery store,

a brunette doll with painted eyes, moving

eyelids, and real lashes. I juggled her flour-sack

body in one arm and the cereal boxes and

soup cans in the other.

But, because I wasn’t versed in caring for a child,

I forgot her. I left her in the dairy case

when I picked out the eggs, left her dumb, full diaper

warming the butter and spoiling the yogurt.

The checker in the express lane

wore a green smock and had a soft

pink scar above his left eyebrow.

As he handed me the change

he looked deep into me

where a soft wind fluttered, where

a sea of bile lapped quietly

in my belly

and he knew

I was not a real mother.

Ashamed as a sunburn,

I took my canvas sack and passed

through the automatic door as a long row of carts

as gnarled as the index finger of an old woman

moved in my opposition.



All Empty

One winter night in Boston we stood

still on the back porch of my sister’s house and

smoked as the black-boned arms of the

hedge maples took us in their grooved embrace.

The sky clear, the stars sharp and hung low.

A kindless bird pealed on about the way

things are done in this type of world, the

type where you don’t spend time counting stars

without expecting something from the result.

Maybe there is a god, you said, but that’s

not the issue now.

If there, he can’t be bothered with failures

like these. There are some losses

you just don’t get over.

This is not to say that my pain is

deeper

than your pain.

A pregnancy I terminated: One new body

added to my constellation of errors.

I pry open the bathroom window

from the inside to get to the outside,

cut the screen and crawl out backwards, feet first.

I am fever chart and lipsticked mouth

angry need and sagging belly

empty.