KateMcCarrollMoore

Midmorning layover at Midway – a spell has been cast

electric air filled with laughter and people

waving placards and flags throughout the terminal

contagious joy spreading as delegates mingle

with unwary travelers heading home

with their collective story to tell

and there at the gate, our local news anchor waits

without fanfare, silent observer writing a new story

airing soon: this is what hope feels like,

this is what joy looks like

every day grateful!

When I was six,
actually six and three quarters
as I told the eye doctor,
I got my first pair of glasses.
But first we played that game
that I hate to this day
Which is better…this or that?
How about now?
And now?
I always feel as though it’s some
kind of test, not of my eyes
but of my truthfulness
Am I allowed to say 
it all looks the same ––
I don’t see
any difference?

While most first graders might
be embarrassed to risk being called 
four-eyes, I was excited.

Grownups wore glasses.

I had already figured out about Santa,
I read Dear Ann Landers in the daily newspaper,
and my dad let me stay up to watch 
The Danny Thomas Show with him
on Monday nights. He called me Irish.

I was ready for the world of adulthood
in my sparkly blue cat’s eye glasses. 

I believed they made me look years older,
just as when I casually strolled down the street
at fourteen, smoking one of my father’s
pilfered Marlboro’s announcing to the world
Look at me with my four foot something swagger,
here comes a grown ass woman
and I’ve got the goods to prove it.

My sister loaded the wheelchair into the trunk, 
just in case. My daughter walked her slowly to the car,
helped her lower herself into the front seat, passed her the
floral cane she loves. She wanted to see the tulips in full bloom.

At seventeen, she was on the very first Tulip Court
Dark-haired beauty with a radiant smile. Now, every year 
she’s invited back and fussed over – the last
of the original beauty queens, a living legend.

This year, the seventy-fourth anniversary of the tradition
honoring the city’s Dutch heritage, no invitation comes.
Times change. So we go to the tulips, make a wish, 
ask them to bless this life that we have left.

“This is a story about magical thinking. About coincidence and manifestation.”

                                Maggie Smith, You Could Make This Place Beautiful

This is the story of the poem
I wrote for my Aunt Anne
after I noticed a new painting 
in her renovated kitchen

Romaine Lettuce, the painting’s called
though I didn’t know it 
at the time, still life
of a summer harvest

You can imagine 
soft white curtains 
moving gently, morning light 
through an open window

It’s a Tantillo, she said –
I love that painting, although it’s just
a page torn from a magazine
set in an expensive frame

I wrote the poem for her
before she knew she was dying,
before I knew. Wrote it because
she was a poet in search of answers

I wrote a poem for her
about a painting

That poem doesn’t matter now

What matters is what happened next

This is a story about magical thinking. About coincidence and manifestation.

Her kids held an estate sale when she died
when it was over, they gave me a key
so I could walk through the house
one more time, one last time

The house was nearly empty
except for her spirit. Could I feel her there?
Reader, I could. In the corner, propped on a table
lone painting, familiar in its silver frame, waiting just for me

Alphapoetica: A Poetry Primer for the Everyday Poet is part memoir, part poetry collection, plus writing guide. I can’t wait to share it with you! TO ORDER GO TO: finishinglinepress.com/product/alphap…
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2022 means new projects of the heart are ready to launch! My latest novel for children and a new poetry collection are both available now for preorder from their respective publishers: https://bit.ly/3eLltti and https://bit.ly/3mPDgEl. I’m so happy to share my words with you. Thank you for helping to spread poetry, kindness and a bit of magic.