Katrina K Guarascio

Coastline

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I am elegant
in surf:
a better
swimmer than
most land
bound creatures,
resistant to
regain straight
legged pose.

You can tell
by the arch
of my back
I can keep afloat
after the moon
rips her tides.

I thought
letting body
simmer to
surface
was the only
way to
feel grace
until my waves
met your shore.

I do not grip
to your coast
because I think
I will drown.

I hold on
because I
can’t bear
to let you go.

“Coastline” is previously published in Otherwise Engaged (2022).

On the Plane

/ Katrina Kaye / 4 Comments

Katrina Kaye

to Houston,
I catch the scent
of my grandmother.

I couldn’t place
it’s origin,
but I knew
it as her.

I am not one to commune
with other worlds,
never been touched by angels
or seen flashes of god.

I have the spirituality
of an earth worm,

but
I still hope.
I always hope.

And my mind wonders at
the wandering soul
of my grandmother
as she passes through
narrow cabin.

I slip
into seat
and let her slip
into my mind.

Freely,
I trace the veins of
her cold hands,
the lines of her smile,
the sound of her laugh
all these precious memories,
cradling the images
close at mind,
tight to heart.

But they wander easy,
fade in a mere moment
as fast as
passing breeze
into the light
of rising sun.

“On the Plane” previously published in the collection, my verse…, published by Swimming with Elephants Publications, LLC in 2012.

Release

/ Katrina Kaye

Katrina Kaye

I practice release:

For too many years I kept
carcasses baited on hook,
held skeletons long
after their slow decay.

My house reeks of
decomposition.
The dust piled heavy
on unread books,
the sand on windowsill
that comes from the
March winds.

It is time to practice release:

Open windows,
leave doors ajar,
allow the cat to slip in
and out around unkempt stoop.

Burn poems, pictures, throw away
artwork piled behind dressers.
Dismiss the bundled burden of
birthday cards from shoebox.

All the keepsakes that define
who I was are no longer relevant
to whom I have become.
Let them dissolve into sand
and seep through fingers,
sticking and scattering
where it may.

“Release” is previously published in Rabbits for Luck (2016).