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Evelyn Augusto Poem
Today I pass the time reading
a favorite note from you, and
saying our acronym over and over.
It feels like hearing you
call my name, from a dream,
again and again. Yasbtm. Yasbtm.
I lie on my back on the bed and say it.
I drum the syllables on the pillow.
I see your secret code of affection
in the pattern on the ceiling tiles.
Yasbtm.
I stand at the sink,
toothbrush in hand,
and say it, my mouth full--
I dare not spit.
l smile our secret and swallow.
And when outside I stoop to
write the letters in the snow:
Yasbtm
I say it, trying to remain as beautiful
as I was when you sent Joe
as a messenger the first time--
trying to be the same as when you left.
And everytime I say it, I feel the
excruciating pressure of knowing
that I'm not the same: I'm no longer
so beautiful. You left and took
that part of me with you.
By: Evelyn Augusto
#poetsout @evelynaugusto2012
Copyright © Evelyn Augusto | Year Posted 2019
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Evelyn Augusto Poem
Defining Grief
the day my
mother died
i was awake all
night
searching
for a way back
into her womb
but she had
closed
her legs to me
wrote
no vacancy
across her heart
and left without
saying goodbye.
Copyright © Evelyn Augusto | Year Posted 2018
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Evelyn Augusto Poem
I miss you-- the way I miss
the comfort of my own mother's
embrace. So soothing. So divinely
human.
Once, I pressed my cheek against
her bosom. I remember, the relief
of being, momentarily,
saved.
And even as I write this--
and even as I tell you--
I slouch toward
the familiar & I can feel the
warmth of her skin, damp &
pulsating, beneath her
peasant blouse-- the color
of lilacs. The fabric--
rough against my wet cheek--
her amble breast, a pillow
for my weary head.
And even as I describe this,
and even as I tell you,
I can smell layers of home: Ivory
detergent, hot grease & Chanel.
Oh! how it has left me wanting.
And I can recall the healing of her
embrace-- the weight of her chin
pressing down atop my head,
my pursed lips sealed to that
foreign place that once would not
welcome my tender infant mouth--
but now ached, filled with
remorse for all she refused me, then.
Because she knew too well, now,
that the world was much more
than she had prepared me for.
Too much for women like she and
I to endure. She felt sorry.
I can tell you that no
where else have I
felt as safe, outside my
own mother's embrace,
than in your arms.
And I ask: Did she send you?
Copyright © Evelyn Augusto | Year Posted 2018
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Evelyn Augusto Poem
The postcard he would never send
found its way into the child’s sand pail
after he had carefully selected it
from a rack in the souvenir shop
cautiously carrying it tucked inside
the folds of his red, white and
blue striped towel to the seaside.
Then he penned the words:
Wish you were here…
on its field of white,
scratching a black “x”
where her body might lie
alongside his body
in the perfectly coiffed sand—
in the picturesque seascape
on the face of the charming,
little card...when a hot wind,
filled with love’s urgency, came
over the water ( it would not wait)
and up onto the beach
as if to herald his message to her.
The postcard lifted up like a kite
swirled past a sour, snoring
centenarian, beyond a father
and son— oyster rakes in hand
despite the spelling of the month--
then alighted in the lovely lap
of a small ginger-haired girl who
looked curiously up after squinting
hard at the card and at its letters...
sounding out the “www” and “ssshhh”.
She pressed the invitation to her lips
and would forever search for its sender.
Copyright © Evelyn Augusto | Year Posted 2018
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Evelyn Augusto Poem
I sit behind the steering
wheel, in the parking lot
of the grocery store
and think of paradise.
I see you instead of angels,
the shadowy places of the room
we loved in, small as a postage
stamp, and recall how your
kisses moved me to
the edge of ecstasy--
a place as foreign as paradise.
Through the windshield
I watch a man spit on
the asphalt in front
of me and take the
hand of a woman with
dirty hair. I wonder
if she minds him at all--
I wonder if she thought
of paradise today.
Copyright © Evelyn Augusto | Year Posted 2018
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