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Best Poems Written by Evelyn Augusto

Below are the all-time best Evelyn Augusto poems as chosen by PoetrySoup members

Details | Evelyn Augusto Poem

In Memory of Joe Cocker

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

Details | Evelyn Augusto Poem

Defining Grief

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.

Details | Evelyn Augusto Poem

Mother

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?

Details | Evelyn Augusto Poem

At the Beach

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.

Details | Evelyn Augusto Poem

Many Mornings After

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.