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Best Poems Written by Ann Ricci

Below are the all-time best Ann Ricci poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Ann Ricci Poem

Cakewalk

October held 10 family birthdays
all between 4 houses on Troy Street.
Each night after dinner we
set out on our walk for cake.
Aunt Lory’s house was rum
Aunt Josies, buttercream frosted white,
and Aunt Lu’s lemon, bright yellow, rich and moist
could made her St. Joseph’s statue drool.

We’d gather around the birthday boy perched on a chair, 
while us cousins stood, shoulder to shoulder,
eagerly waiting for the last note of the song to be sung.
I stood eye level to the burning numbered candles,
mesmerized by their melting wax dripping 
down the sides like sap from a tree.
Their light, drunk on sugar, danced wildly 
across our hungry faces.

Then with one large blow the room went black.
In those few seconds Darkness, like eternity
steals all their faces from my sight.
The room frozen, suspended precariously between
feast and fear, grief and gratitude, love and loss.
Lights return to applause as the knife cuts deep into the center.
Wishes like prayers are sent rising as curls of smoke
through a chimney, up, up to places far away.

Paper plates of sugar splendor are passed down and devoured.
We didn’t realize then, just silly girls with frost covered lips,
how everything of importance in this world fit at the end of that fork. 
With full bellies our good-byes are said on porch lite steps.
And the moon, like a lantern, radiant in the Autumn sky
illuminates our way home till our next walk,
Aunt Mary’s luscious chocolate layer cake.

Details | Ann Ricci Poem

River

I love how the river in silent trust
will spend its life rolling towards the sea.
From wherever it starts
all water shares the single desire
to make its way home.
Effortless, thoughtless
a fluid floating faith.
Each drop united in its divinity.
And it matters not how it spends the day,
wild rushing or in drowsy drift,
it is never lost,
it never doubts its direction,
never questions its purpose.
It is simply homeward bound.

I want to be a river
my daily struggles left
as a pile of clothes on the bank,
the weight of my decisions to stay or go
right or left
right or wrong,
like stones sink to the bottom.
And I rest 
into a current of mercy,
dancing sunlight on my surface
adrift, effortless, thoughtless,
buoyant by my truths grace,
my hearts compass guides me
and carries me home.

Details | Ann Ricci Poem

River

I love how the river in silent trust
will spend its life rolling towards the sea.
From wherever it starts
all water shares the single desire
to make its way home.
Effortless, thoughtless
a fluid floating faith.
Each drop united in its divinity.
And it matters not how it spends the day,
wild rushing or in drowsy drift,
it is never lost,
it never doubts its direction,
never questions its purpose.
It is simply homeward bound.

I want to be a river
my daily struggles left
as a pile of clothes on the bank,
the weight of my decisions to stay or go
right or left
right or wrong,
like stones sink to the bottom.
And I rest 
into a current of mercy,
dancing sunlight on my surface
adrift, effortless, thoughtless,
buoyant by my truths grace,
my hearts compass guides me
and carries me home.

Details | Ann Ricci Poem

Divine Trust

I’m the baby chick kicking out of the
crippling darkness with no knowledge
of what’s beyond my cracked world
lost only in the frantic desperation to burst out.

Growing, stretching out of my skin,
out of my life, out of my mind
and the confined space it keeps me in.
My life, like stagnant water is giving me a foul smell.

My everyday habits, morning rituals, evening routines
have weaved themselves into a suit that tightens around my neck
week after week, month after month, tighter
till I’m panicked for fresh air, open spaces, life with wonderment.

I’m shedding in clumps, leaving bits of me everywhere
old friends, past loves, rusty convictions, 
binding traditions, restricting regrets 
I sweep from the corners of my room into piles of waste.

My stomach aches with ambition crouched inside it
pricking, pinching with needles a tattoo
inside of me that in the mirror reads
LET ME OUT!!!!

I lay in bed at night tortured by the cracking in my ears,
the sound of my cells dividing
giving birth to new universes that bud into
pink skin, new nails, eye lashes, hope.

I’m a ghost of my future self
standing at the end of my bed
watching myself sleep, mourning my own death
with tears of anticipation.

My unruly spirit no longer silent, screams like steam in a teapot.
I’m a reveling tinderbox glowing in the dark,
with no apologizes left for my disruptive eagerness
disobedient passions or my impolite aspirations.

Destiny is in the car honking the horn
while I pack, sorting, collecting all that I’ll need
faith, courage, dreams. I feel the urgency
with every thump, thump of my heart stomping its feet.

I disrobe, my soul naked and anxious stands on the ledge,
arms out and open while Promise is placed like a host on my tongue
Divine trust spreads feathered across my back.
Eyes closed I lift, rescuing myself into my own salvation.

Details | Ann Ricci Poem

Cross

You’re a
cross
I bear.

Your weight
ladens
my back.

The burden,
my own
doing.

The burden,
my own
undoing.

You’re a 
cross
I bear.

All I
have left
of you.

Without which
I’d float away
unnoticed.

Details | Ann Ricci Poem

Where I Carry You

Hurt me,
let me carry your scars,
marked, feeling
your rough hands
break past my ribs
piercing your way in.

Take me by force,
claim me, 
let every thrust shout
“Mine! Mine! Mine!
Leaving the imprint of your grasp 
embedded in my hips.

Push inside me,
till I’m swollen and raw
driving out everyone before you,
everything in me that’s not you,
the wounds, changing me
from the inside out.

Enter me and stay,
tattooed on my flesh,
branded and bruised,
scarred,
under my breast
where I carry you.