Summer Morning Sestina
Sandra Yannone
The breeze sifts through the tattered screen
as does the punctuating cackles of roosters. My hands
cover my ears to shield them from the shrew’s
call and response. Everything seems dressed
in feathers at this moment of building
something not quite loaded
in my mind. The sky is loading
up the sun for another day of sunscreen
needed. I continue to build
upon the peace I can press between my hands.
Others I know bear dressings
wound around their wrists, shrewd
gauze reminders of their shrewder
desires to off load
their lives into a better dressed
version of now like stars on the big screens
decked out in taffeta and tuxedos, gloved hands,
and jewels. The imagination keeps building
castles in the air. The buildings
stare down from the clouds. Shrews
think about migrating there, but eventually hand
in their notices to vacate for less loaded
climates in winter, needing to screen
out the blusters of snow that dress
the northern skies. Changes of address
await us all as we build
our lives, trying to screen
out death at every wild turn. It’s a shrewd
existence to feel so front loaded
with the knowledge that our hands
one day will not move like hands,
that someone will have to dress
us in our best and unload
us to the earth or water or whatever building
we choose to inhabit in our shrewd
next wild life. The morning still screens
the breeze. I am building my day to unload
whatever it is that I can’t hand over to the dress
rehearsal that my life simply can’t screen.
Sprout
Sandra Yannone
The girl with the red mittens on
is not me, but her red
hands belong to my wrists.
I give away glass jars
filled with jellyfish
marbles. This jar is
a snow globe of spring.
Tomorrow, I will press
a penny into a women’s hand.
She will stand next to me
on the edge of a braided rug
of ice, squint and blink,
whispering, You must open me
to see what’s inside. I will
arrange lemon wedges
into sunbursts on a white plate
to remind myself to open her
carefully. To find what’s inside
of what’s inside, I will twist
open her mason jar’s lid
at its rusting neck, peer into
the melted snow inside her
felted pockets, imagine her
as the girl with the red mittens on,
keeping her hands warm
underneath the knitted wool
until this warmer summer
day when we first meet again.