Barbara Link- Three Poems

                        October                                                            

           

                        Sometimes at night

                        you hold my hand

                        as my thoughts tumble

                        like tennis shoes in the dryer.

            I know too little about you

too much about me,

I dispel the total darkness

by opening my eyes

gaze at familiar curtains and lamp.

           

                        Our separate but connected bodies

                        in the same solar system;

                        held by threads

as slight and strong

                        as spider spinnings.
 


                       East of Modesto                                                       

                        All day long I’ve been connected

                        to the car

                        speeding through green orchards

                        to the piano tinkling on public radio

                        to the earth.

                        My fingers reach for words

                        and soft bright pebbles,

                        you are out there, I know—

                        our lips feel the same wind.

                        Dry Creek                                                                                       

                        It is enough for now,

                        to hear a dove cooing in the rain,

                        to play the piano all morning,

                        to read my history in poems,

                        to hold in my hand like a soap bubble,

                        the fragile structure of loss and gain.
                       Remembering, it was your hands,
                        I loved first and last,

                        hands true and stronger,

                        than candlelight, white tablecloths,

                        than nights on pillows by the fire.

                        And now it is enough to have

                        walked by the dark water,

                        felt your wool coat and the stars,

                        stood together on the bridge,

                        seen the pomegranate in the water,

                        floating toward us, through us, past us,

                        like a bursting red sun.



Bio: Award-winning California author and poet, Barbara Link, has had three stories aired on KVPR, a National Public Radio Affiliate. Her poetry and fiction  have appeared in numerous literary magazines and small presses. She also received the Sacramento State University Bazzanella Prize for fiction. Her memoir, Blue Shy was published in 2010 and awarded first prize in the Sacramento Friends of the Library First Chapter contest.

Partial list of publications. American River Review, Poetry Now, Earth’s Daughters, Mindprint Review, Anima, Whitefish Review, Missouri Review, Women’s Compendium, Hardpan, Dead Snakes.