Sarah Russell

All that Remains

I rush upstairs when it starts, rain and wind
pummeling the old apple tree, branches cracking.

I had opened the windows wide this morning—
airing out, Mom called it—letting the stale of winter

escape into April. Now this—a storm threshing
the forsythia, shredding yellow blossoms on the lawn.

The landscape blurs through windows as I close them,
drops filling small pores in the screens, collecting dust

in muddy puddles on the sill. There’d been a storm like this
the day Mom was buried. It hurried the pastor’s homily,

made a mire of dirt, fresh-turned beside the grave. I thought
how Dad and I were like the gray, beading drops as we stood

bare-headed, not touching; how we evaporated that day
leaving only grime on the sill.

__________

 
Havana

Early morning on the wharf, sharing a thermos
with Juan Pablo. He’s brown and scuffed
as old boots, tough like that too, eyes squinted
with age and sun. He knows the ocean
like his woman’s face, reads stars, wind,
waves, like poems. He’s mending a net, hands
stiff and scarred, sorting gnarls and frays,
ash falling from a Camel held square
between his teeth. A tourist interrupts,
though no one’s talking, wants to hire
the boat to fish tarpon. Juan Pablo grunts
and nods toward a salt-soaked sign
with hourly rates. The guy says he’ll be back
with his wife and kid. Juan Pablo watches him
stride toward a hotel, New York cadence
out of step with the lap of water on pilings.
He snorts, then gathers up the net, half done,
stands with a stumble to favor his bum knee.
He jerks his head toward the seamless join
of sea and sky. C’mon, he says, taking the stub
of Camel and grinding it under his heel.
That cabrón can hire another boat.

__________

Harbor Woman

She takes them in — the peddler,
minstrel, gypsy. Townsfolk speak
in wanton whispers, how she beds
each one. They rebuke their budding
daughters who mime her loose-hipped
stroll. Addled by her lustered hair, full lips,
boys are whipped for where their hands go
in the night. But the same wives who beat
their sons, go in darkness for her herbs
so they will bleed again. Men, lured by musk
and breasts that push beneath her shawl,
dream her while astride those dowdy wives,
conjure her cries in their grinding. Beside
her hearth, sojourners tell of war and greed
and mutiny, of realms where she could dance
for kings, wear silks, call maids to brush her hair.
They tempt her to break free, but she knows
her place is here, knows she is the wellspring
of sweet water for parched village tongues.

__________

Sarah Russell’s poetry and fiction have been published in Rattle, Misfit Magazine, Third Wednesday, Poetry Breakfast, and many other journals and anthologies. She is a Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net nominee. She has two poetry collections published by Kelsay Books, I lost summer somewhere and Today and Other Seasons. Her novella The Ballerina Swan Lake Mobile Homes Country Club Motel was published by Running Wild Press. She blogs at https://SarahRussellPoetry.net