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Best Poems Written by Dana Fasciano

Below are the all-time best Dana Fasciano poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Dana Fasciano Poem

Leatherback Turtle

I.

The night was as thick as melted asphalt
when her prehistoric form
emerged like a monument
in the sand
and each egg that descended
spiked the air with the scent of birth,
sweet, pungent,
and female.

Drunk with labor,
she could not sense the mass
of people that surrounded her,
the eggs that slid through her rubbery body,
or perhaps the knowledge
that, in minutes, she would abandon 
them forever.

Who could know 
how far she had traveled
or what force had pulled her home
like snare
in that death-black sea.

II.

Do they look for her
when they have pushed their way
through the grit and sand
or fumble for the safety
of her strong flipper
when all she has left behind is instinct
cold as the saltwater
that must sting their newly formed eyes.

Decades later, the few that survive
will rotate the earth with their memories,
the turbulent water pressing 
against them like sadness
to return to the place where they were born.
 
And when they reach it
do they search for her
before entering that trance,
wanting to see that she, too, has come back
and has been waiting all this time
in the darkness.

Details | Dana Fasciano Poem

What My Mother Does After My Father's Death

She finds a bird
fallen from its nest,
crashed like an apple

to the ground.
Sliding her fingers through
the rain soaked grass,

she scoops the quivering 
ball of feathers into her palm.
She takes it inside, to the same kitchen

where she wept
over her dead husband 
every night for nearly a decade.

She feeds it baby formula 
from an eye-dropper, whispering
I believe in your wings.

I watch from behind a doorway,
the broken bird, its needful cries,
all of that delicate weight 
resting on the kitchen table,
my mother,
her precious grief.

Details | Dana Fasciano Poem

Where it Began

My grandmother knew
the exact moment I was born.

She was sitting in the passenger seat
of my grandfather’s navy blue Jeep Wrangler.

Speeding down the New Jersey turnpike,
the windows trembled against rushing air.

She closed her eyes and said,
“I just heard my baby granddaughter cry.”

Every time she tells this story,
I imagine my first guttural wail
transcending miles of houses,
trees, and pavement.

I think what a crude force even then
was my unrelenting fear,
its velocity,
its volume,
its stamina.

Details | Dana Fasciano Poem

Oreo

The night before my father’s heart attack,
my brother and I were splayed across a bed
watching a re-run of “Happy Days”
and eating Oreo cookies.

My father sat stiff and upright
in a wooden chair.  By then, his back
felt like it was being pierced by daggers
and the pain made his face pale and clammy.

I offered him an Oreo,
one of his favorite snacks,
as I gently twisted apart the dark discs
to reveal the snowy treasure
in between.

He watched as I scraped the cream
from the dry, crisp chocolate with my teeth,
then he turned his head
and said, “No, thank you.”

I never wondered if he knew
in those final hours
that his emerald eyes
were about to close forever,
or if he felt death spread inside of him
like a cool drink.

Because if he did,
he would have taken the Oreo,
if only for one small bite,
just to feel the gritty chocolate,
that ordinary joy,
crumble over his tongue
one last time.