Sandy Benitez- Three Poems

Cold and Damp

I hear the sound of trampling,
little feet hopping in circles above
while high-pitched giggles
pierce the blue sky until it bleeds rain.

A frayed ribbon lies abandoned
upon the wet, inviting earth
and now there is only silence
scattered like tiny bird bones.

Where has all the life gone?
The sound of weeping haunts me.
A man whistles while shoveling his thoughts
back into the ground, dark and deep.

I cannot feel my body nor speak.
Days ago I lost my breath,
waited for its return but it strayed.
Now I lay here unable to sleep,

memories of yesterday cold and damp.

Free Fall into Forget

Shadowed by the wooden shoulders
of a rundown cedar bridge,
I knelt behind the guardrail
like a soldier readying her weapon.

Wings that I had never known
spread wide a heartbeat apart.
Muted indigo and emerald 
once my camouflage 

was now a pearlescent, feathery coat
displayed with pride.
The river moved along its pebbled road,
smoothing every stone to truth.

I reached inside a hidden pocket
of lint and sorrow
fragile as moth wings.
I tied your name to a lonely twig,

let it free fall into forget.

Flutter House

Secreted in her house of wild roses,
poetry, and thickets of pearly bone
she cautiously opens the front door
under a painted sky ever violet and veiled.

There is birdsong not her own,
unfamiliar the music enchants,
shakes the sturdy walls she built;
her back bending like a broken tree.

The corridors to her heart
a labyrinth of quiet and strange musings.
Solve the riddle and you may stay.
There are unwritten songs to be sung,

splayed on the surface of a burnt tongue.

Sandy Benitez is the founder & editor of Poppy Road Review, Black Poppy Review, and Flutter Press.  Her latest chapbook, The Lilac City, was published by Origami Poems Project.  Sandy's most recent work has been published in The Artistic Muse: Pohemians, Houseboat, The Missing of the Birds, The Kentucky Review, and The Blue Hour. She’s been nominated for the Pushcart, Best of the Web, and Best of the Net.  Sandy resides in Southern California with her husband and two children.