Shooting Star
If only I were hot enough
I’d slap your face so hard,
throw you into the steaming,
dark street, then watch you
from my window,
leaning against an
Edward Hopper streetlamp,
gazing up at me in disbelief.
Published in Last Leaves, 2020
Taking Back Eden
I’m not going to mow the grass. I’m going to water the
weeds.
I’m not going to wear tight jeans. I’m going to strip and
breathe.
I’m going to run to the woods. I’m going to release Eve.
I’m going to take back Eden.
I’m going to dismantle the wooden gate.
I’m going to let in the beasts. We’re going to eat
everything.
We’re going to share the apples. We’re going to sing with
snakes.
We’re going to swing from trees. We’re going to sleep with
ease.
We’re not going to succumb; control will never come.
Published in Backward Trajectory, November 2021
Primitive Prayer
I go outside at sundown,
pinning the stained-glass trail
to the Earth with ice cleats,
glorious snow under my feet.
The hawk screams above Creek Road.
Does anybody live in that blue house?
Hopper lonely, so Hopper lonely.
The snowbank at the side of the road
sits in the shape of a pew,
but I’d rather move with the mallards
slapping their wet feet, ready to fly.
I’m ready.
A songbird pounds
his pipe organ in the sky,
calling me up the hill.
I climb
breathing in the night air,
revived by this primitive prayer.
Published in Bluebird Word (mid-March 2022)
Nothing to Say
I step outside
and scratch my white scruffy scarf
as the bitter wind confronts my face-
I take it in like a deep kiss, exhale,
then walk forward like Whitman.
I carefully place dead leaves
over allium, so sacred they are to me,
sleeping deep in the late, soft dirt,
then walk on like Whitman.
Bittersweet berries choke
this gray day red.
Hoof tracks follow me
Like Snow White
but I walk like Whitman.
I lay down by the Poestenkill creek,
seduced by its endless conversation.
I celebrate myself with a selfie
then loafe like Whitman,
with nothing like Whitman to say.
Published in After the Pause, March 2022
Witch
I run my fingers
through their hair and inhale, tilting slender tillers.
Our golden
strands move together
when the winds speak to us - I understand their talk like
the Lakota,
Shinnecock, and Cherokee, but I’m none of them.
I’m a white woman with a woodland spirit on the prairie.
I ride
foxes and coyotes like stallions.
I high-five queen Anne’s lace cheering from the sidelines.
I’m
Stands with a Fist when the wolves come howling.
I heal myself with witch hazel, lavender, and hawthorn.
I carry
wood to the firepit where my ancestors perished.
I paint my face with their ashes and sing their songs.
The
trees breeze when I dance until their leaves are gone,
and soon, I will molder, too, for I am one with the earth,
bound to none.
Published in Bluebird Word, February 2022
Nancy Byrne Iannucci is a widely published poet:
Defenestration, Typehouse Literary Magazine, Glass: a Poetry Journal are some
of the places you will find her. She is the author of two chapbooks, Temptation
of Wood (Nixes Mate Review, 2018), and Goblin Fruit (Impspired, 2021); she is
also a teacher, and woodland roamer. Visit her at www.nancybyrneiannucci.com
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