May 2021
Joan Leotta
joanleotta@gmail.com
joanleotta@gmail.com
Bio Note: Memories are the building blocks of today's feelings—my childhood was filled with wonderful
days, even when sick, of spending time with my maternal Grandmother.
Dreams, I find, often take memories and shift them into prophecies, warnings, reconciliations of past emptiness or simply frighten me. Thank goodness most of my dreams are good ones, although I struggle to recall them. Unfortunately, the nightmares seem to often seep into consciousness, though I have worked out a strategy to defeat them.
Dreams, I find, often take memories and shift them into prophecies, warnings, reconciliations of past emptiness or simply frighten me. Thank goodness most of my dreams are good ones, although I struggle to recall them. Unfortunately, the nightmares seem to often seep into consciousness, though I have worked out a strategy to defeat them.
Streetcar Lullaby on Highland Avenue
Sleeping at Grandma’s, on nights when
deep summer heat refused to dissipate
in evening making me swim in sweaty
cotton sheets. Grandma looked in to
say goodnight and I squeezed my eyes
shut, pretending to sleep, but it was too hot.
Windows open, one framed a churning fan
whose whap, whirr, whine,
invaded my mind, instead of lulling
me to sleep. I heard the lights
snap off in the other bedrooms.
Muffled snores at last revealed
only the fan was awake with me
I counted sheep, books, slipped
out of bed and looked out
on the street below, lonely, silent
until the three AM
red streetcar rattled by below.
His friendly bell dinged a greeting.
as it arrived at the stop. No one got
out and it rolled by
on moonlit twin silver steel trails.
I waved, hopped back onto the bed,
and soon asleep, reassured
I was not alone in the long, hot night.
Quilt
Sitting on my couch, I snuggle under a quilt made from Grandma's coats. Each square’s cut from a day we went out together to shop, to lunch, or church. I would lean against her in car, streetcar, or taxi when I was weary of it all. Grandma would hug me, pull me close— my cheek against each season's coat, comforting me. Now each square’s a pathway back to childhood when my cheek on grandma's coat could quiet the discord of a too busy world.
Winner of Bronze medal at State level in NC Silver Arts, 2017
Published by Poetry in Public Places as a poster 2021
Published by Poetry in Public Places as a poster 2021
©2021 Joan Leotta
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the
author (email address above) to tell her or him. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual.
It is very important. -JL