Guest Poet Series: Kate Harp

Because poetry is tough taco guest poets will from now on plenish the apetite of Rahdel comentators. It was hard to select starters for this series. Thanks to Kate Harp for standing up.

(Magnetic) Storm

But when the early tears
Of this last summer storm
Begin to drop like pebbles
On our lips ad the sand,
Take a breath of comfort
As the crushed sky opens -
Remember only you
Could taste
The rain
In me

Lot

It would be a landscape painting, otherwise.
Expanse of snow. Sky, unfinished, the color of canvas,
Night dirtying its edges. A picture framed by a windshield,
Seen through scratched glass. The tongue-shaped patch
Where the car was, the pools of red its tail-lights cast…
Nothing to mark the way the view recedes; the scene is shapeless,
Indistinct. It makes its way towards dark.
Far back, beyond the lot, a boy in silhouette takes one last shot.
The ball, in perfect arc, won’t touch the rim. There is no net.
By the time the silence breaks, you’ll be on the road,
And gaining speed. But in this last look back, your glance
Catches the boy in motion, in solitary light,
And turns the scene into a portrait.

Ophelia

The river shattered,
caught me up
in arms stronger
than the ones -
of lover, brother, father -
that I had known.
I flew,
and surfaced.
Now snowflakes fall,
ghosts of withered violets.
Ice kisses
land softly on my lips,
paint a bridal lace
on my cooling brow.
In all the nights
I hid with you
I never dreamed
that it would be
the one I fled from
whom I did not
have the strength
to live without.