December 2016
I've been scribbling words and telling stories since I was old enough to hold a crayon. Poetry has always been my first love, tho I spent many years on stage(story performance) and writing business articles. Now its back to poems and stories full time--when I'm not collecting seashells, cooking, or daydreaming about travel. My first chapbook is coming out in January 2017 from Finishing Line. It's called Languid Lusciousness with Lemon.
Back Porch Morning
Brick pillars defined its limits.
Square, small, docked
like a small lifeboat
trailing behind her ship of a home
in the vast green sea of her lawn.
Grandma and I ate our
buttered toast without crusts
sitting at a steel
cafe table.
Afterwards, she
stood on the top step--
tossed crumbs and crusts
onto that green sea of a lawn.
"Come!" she called.
Every sparrow in the world
descended.
My Grandma
could summon birds
from an empty sky!
One morning
curiosity trumped awe.
"How do they hear you?"
Smiling, she answered
"Everyone hears
when called to table."
First Published in A Quiet Courage, April 16, 2015
©2016 Joan Leotta
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