L.L. Barkat is a writer, editor, poet, columnist, speaker and entrepreneur. She is the author of Stone Crossings: Finding Grace in Hard and Hidden Places, God in the Yard: Spiritual Practice for the Rest of Us, and InsideOut: Poems. Barkat is Managing Editor at The High Calling and staff writer for International Arts Movement’s The Curator. She’s also a co-editor here at TweetSpeak Poetry.
This poem is taken from InsideOut: Poems, published in 2009 by International Arts Movement.
Foyer
Who looks
at the new straw
hat, remembering
Grandma,
how she beat
brazen rays each
day by sneaking
under a brim
like that. And who
notices the wrought
iron roses now
hung askew
on our cherry
coat rack; she
wrung pits
out of red fruit
too, swatted flies,
rolled tart sweet
flesh, juice into
crust, but that is
another story;
I am asking you
about the roses
broken, and a
missing screw,
but you are busy
arranging tailored
black wool on
a cool hook worn
brass blue, we’re
just in the hall,
after all, we’re just
passing through.
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Maureen Doallas says
The beautiful craft so evident in L.L.’s poetry make her words timeless and the kind we want to return to again and again.
L. L. Barkat says
You surprised me with this!
Thank you. It was fun to see it.