Shaunna Sanders

Joe Pulling Weeds

Joe squats in the garden,
his clawed fingers scrabbling
at the dirt.
He mutters bracingly—
the vague mantra of a reluctant gardener—
and fistfuls of weeds,
their roots choked with potting soil,
go spinning overhead.

His sister, two years old and still cherubic,
toddles around him with a plastic bottle cap,
filling it up and dumping it out,
tilling the soil, in her little way.
She loves the dirt for its own sake,
quite apart from any politics.

They work quickly, he at his sporadic weeding
and she at her admiration,
but a storm is coming.
The smell of rain soaks the air and
the wind, free of its leash,
whips their hair into their faces.

He looks up, scanning for thunder
in the vacant-eyed clouds,
tasting the air,
for the shock of lightning upon it.
The first drops hit,
a languid avant garde,
and the sister pauses in her errand
to find the spots of skin
painted clean on her arm.

Not yet.
There is still time.
But a storm is coming.

He pulls more frantically at the stubborn weeds,
lashing against their roots,
his whole weight thrown into the business
of upending them.
The wind grows wilder and the rain
more pointed.

And then a distant peal of thunder,
like an angry dog,
rumbles overhead.
Lightning arcs across the sky and paints
the day’s end in bas relief.
The signal has come!

Joe and his sister leap from their perches,
scattering toward the house in terrified excitement,
dirt and weeds trailing behind them,
she, squealing, but he,
mute.

They reach the door,
dart inside,
and pull it closed behind them—
an unfailing talisman against
the perilous weather—
then huddle, silent, against the glass
as the sky turns black and the rain screams toward the earth.

The earth.

The earth...

Summer in the Desert

Excepting snakes, the desert makes night creatures of us all.

We wait the long day in languid silence
while the sun burns across the sky.
We hide in dark corners, fighting the madness,
until the evening drops, the light fades, the earth exhales.

When the night winds blow like the whispers of dryads,
when stars pierce the deepening blue,
when cicadas set down their bows and crickets pick them up again,
then we come alive.

We feel our old strength returning.
We have only been sleeping these hot, dreary hours,
until the sun went down
and we could see:
the lingering twilight
the bird shadows measuring the sky
the clear light of a rising moon.

Fall

The trees are tired
in this wild rush of fall,
tired of the leaves
constantly clamoring to be up
and bursting into brilliant flame,
tired of being awake.

They feel the frost nibbling at both ends of the day,
sense the coming of winter
when sleep and death
hover peacefully in the air
and all the leaves are silent.

This last effort is not for them,
the straining of the colors
and the trembling against the wind.

It's a lost cause, 
as they have always known, 
and all they care for now
is a still night with a pale moon
and the starlight
singing them to sleep.

Thursday, 9:15 p.m.

She was tired.

She sat on the couch, legs crossed (right over left) and
arms folded (left over right) and stared at the silence.

She heard the hum of the refrigerator and
the soft whoosh of the heater and
a strange buzzing in her ears,
as if her brain could not process
the absence of children's voices and
the sound of bare feet slap slap slapping
on the stone floors.
As if silence wasn't good enough,
so it had to make up something else to hear.

She leaned her head to one side and
her mind wandered into tomorrow,
next Tuesday,
three hours ago,
a year from now.

She knew she ought to get up and
do something,
anything.
To sit idly was more than frivolous,
it was more than wasteful and
wanton and
wicked,
it was heavenly.
And it made her tired —
at least, she accused it of making her tired,
because what else could it be?

But the longer she sat,
the louder the humming and
whooshing and
buzzing became,
until it consumed her and
she couldn't think of anything else and
she didn't want to.

So she leaned her head further to the side, and
closed her eyes and
(just like that!)
fell
into a deep and
dreamless sleep.

2:30 a.m.

At 2:30 a.m.
waiting for the baby to sleep again
I discover
why the electric bill is so high.
The A/C has been running for an hour—
some contest to outscream him?
or try to get ahead of the Florida summer?
I wonder who will last the longest
in this battle of wills and lungs?

Surely I can outwit the air conditioner—
turn up the thermostat and
make it go to sleep.
But the baby?
He must struggle along as he can,
screaming his anger out alone
in the dark
to uncaring gods who will wean him
of bottle and breast
and make him learn.

Life is not fair, baby.
For you, whose body and soul
I cradled nine months inside me,
who has no complaint I do not feel,
must now find your own way
back to sleep.

I Know Everythong

*Note: After I posted the poem titled "I Know Everything," I was chatting, left-handed, with my brother while nursing Auralee. I told him to go check out the new poem I had posted, but I made a typing error. He was disappointed to find out the real title of the poem. So in his honor, I have written the poem he thought he was going to get to read.

My father was a boxer—
a not very good one—
girdled by bikini-clad women
trying to seduce him
and tank-top-clad men
trying to reduce him
to just a jock, strapped for cash.

My mother was a player—
a not very good one—
a fiddler with a g-string
always out of tune.

They married and moved
to a second-story flat
and she got a job
at the brassierie under where
they lived.

But their romance was brief.
It was difficult to tell
who wore the pant(ie)s in the family
(Of course, it's always something, I hear,
and it takes two to tanga.)

So he said, "farewell,"
and she said, "so long, John."
And that was when I was conceived.

So now you know everythong,
and boy, is it short!

I Know Everything

I know everything
not worth knowing.

Like the proper spelling of mackerel,
which is useless to me
because I will never write it.
Except once.
In this poem.

My brain cells are crammed with
phone numbers,
old math equations,
Beatles trivia,
one hundred "great thoughts"
Mr. Wetherell made me memorize in tenth grade.

If it's redundant, useless, and otherwise
completely irrelevant to daily life,
I'm bound to know it.

My husband (he says)
knows nothing that is
not worth knowing.

His brain cells are emptier.

He doesn't have to know, of course,
because if he wonders, he can always
ask me.

For instance,
"where are my shoes?"
"what does deleterious mean?"
"what's the name of that song?"
"how do you spell mackerel?"

(that's twice)

Maybe I think that if I hold tight
to the vestiges of life before motherhood
I will not lose myself completely.

Or maybe I think, if I remember enough details,
I will finally write a poem worth reading.

Well, it won't be this one.
M-A-C-K-E....

A Sleeping Baby

A sleeping baby is
a rare gift
from God
who waits until you're
listening.

He wants to make sure
you notice how
she fits, in your arms,
in the arms of the rocking chair—

How she lets go of everything
and head, body, arms, and legs
grow heavy in her sleep.
She does not second-guess you.

And you are the portal
for her sweet, puppy dreams
that only babies get.

Years from now, you are the only one
who will remember
how that little, warm body
wrapped in a footed sleeper,
draped on your chest,
trusted you completely.

He Does Not Know

He does not know — and she cannot tell him —
What it means when he rolls over in the night
To put his arm around her waist
And murmur ”I love you“ from amidst his dreams.

Or how she feels that they have already slept for decades,
Wrapped up in each other,
Heedless of the sunlight seeping through the blinds.

When they wake, it will be spring,
And the years will come tumbling in upon them
Like anxious and happy children.

Then the full measure of their love will rise up,
Shake off the sparkle of yesterday's wedding,
And gather its strength.

But for now, they sleep quietly,
Limbs and lives intertwined,
Whispering to each other from out of their dreams.

Sonnet

You are spring rain falling on my parched earth
To soothe the ache that comes from my soul's growth.
So you, with soft tones and with sweet caress
Bring solace to my heart, to my mind, rest.

You are the heat of summer. As the dusk
Exposes sunset tendrils of that fast
Descending fire, so your touch envelopes
Me. I breathe your heat. And then I know love.

When autumn comes, with winter close behind,
And our full years are playing out their time,
You are the colors — dappled, rich, and deep —
That fill life's canvas; you interpret me.

So our love is not bound by years or times;
We've trussed our souls to new eternities.

We Are

we are
you are
we are —
in spite of reservations —
crazy beautiful,
we who have jaws tight like fists
and who shimmer like the midday haze of a brass desert sun

we are
you are
we are
loud and impossibly
clumsy, yes, and breakable —
we who are just
a girl who collects words
and a boy who collects penguins

we are thick-blooded, luminous
we are
you are
hurting me —
we are never quite sure that we might not be falling
into something
big

Dreams

First, if you should think of me,
Then think in soft tones
Like agile fingers tracing
The outline of your face,
Your eyes,
Your cheekbones,
Your lips.
For this is how I hold you.
And this the delicate strength
Of my touch.

Then, if you should dream of me,
Then dream electric skies,
Like the blurred horizon
Just after the sun has set—
Vivid,
Blue-orange
On black.
For this is how you feel to me.
And this the invisible question
Of your touch.

But, if you should wake me,
Bending through thick, bright chunks
Of morning sun-gold
For a kiss,
Then remember that I, too
Have been dreaming.
And that sometimes,
When I open my eyes to see
The air around you shimmer
And dissolve into strands of light,
I wonder if I am not still
Asleep
And dreaming.

A Visit to the Academy in Florence

He died before they were finished;
Left them like a bored deity
Who always meant to get back to it;
Gave them sorrows but no tear ducts,
Mouths but no voices,
Passions but no hearts.
He put freedom before their eyes
And then bound their feet with marble chains.

Actually, he couldn't have been more right,
Leaving them to struggle in their stone prisons,
Caught between the desire to stay safe in the rock
And the desire to break free and live,
Anxious for new identity but afraid of new pain.
What could be more human than a slave
Trapped by fear of liberation?

summer list

to the wind singing quietly across flat lands racing a pinstripe highway
to the dust settling complacent in the evening lull
to the weary hum of the air conditioner sucking the dew from lungs and drying the sweat on strong, work-bent necks
to the ghost voices of spring picnics and soft rains
to the throbbing hearts and rustling window curtains and the promise of thunder in the vacant-eyed clouds

I sit still on the front steps.
Inside they recover from the day's heat but out here are dying fires and lightning bugs.
I take deep breaths of heavy air and hold them in my chest.
Then the sun has gone down and I listen

to the train whistle piercing the twilight silence
to the street lights flickering on in a row down the street and out of sight
to the hope chasing the blood through my veins

A Valentine's Day Poem

Watching the world through blue-rimmed glasses I see, first of all, you,
Wrapped up in a darkish corner,
Glowing slightly even through the paper.

I see that you are sweet like honey
And drawn with stark, graceful lines whose edges blur as you come close
Then I can hardly tell where you end and I begin.

I notice, too, the occasional hands and like to twine your thicker fingers between and ask about the scars.

There is the smile I love about you and the way you look at me with wide open eyes

And the warm, soft presence of your embrace. You're all I think about—
Staring at the world through blue-rimmed glasses,
Captivated by illimitable, unimagined
You.

Reversible Poem

For love,
how you look
is
what matters most.
Let's be honest.
You can smile
or
grimace,
flirt or
frown.
It makes no difference.
You might believe
love
welcomes
an open heart.
But the end
of the story
can be told
much
sooner.
Look
at the face:
beauty
has a chance at
everything.

Everything
has a chance at
beauty.
At the face,
look
sooner.
Much
can be told
of the story
but the end.
An open heart
welcomes
love.
You might believe
it makes no difference:
frown,
flirt, or
grimace.
Or
you can smile.
Let's be honest.
What matters most
is
how you look
for love.