Red

Red is blood, apples, lipstick, guilty faces, cherries, roses, sometimes grapes
Red is a big bang, a firecracker, the 4th of July, loud
Red smells like hot spices, roses, fire burning
Red tastes like heat, cake, a nose bleed
Red sails in the sunset
Red is love
Love is blind

- Group poem, Adult Center for Enrichment @ River Landing

Haiku

Cancer is in the
Marrow like a killer whale
Locked up in a tomb

by D.J., age 18

Family

Grandpas, Grandmas, mothers and fathers
Brothers and sisters, sons and daughters
Grandpa’s flashbacks
Grandma’s cooking
Fathers working
Mothers sleeping
Brothers fighting
Sisters playing

Precious moments
Bad moments
Growing up is hard to do
Parting ways for a year or two
Saying goodbye is not the end
Family is forever
It will never end

by David S., age 19

For D. at Baptist Hospital

I see you wanting to write
but erasing is what you do.
Brushing your fingers on the white
lined paper, rubbing marks away
as a Dad would a son’s jeans or hair, brushing 
away grass after falling, missing a football midair.

Are you the son or the father?
Do you feel as neither, here,
surrounded by constant strangers
poking and pulling you for blood while I sit,
a visitor, across from you, with the poise
and beauty of poetry folded on my lap?

I want to help you find a word,
any word, that can stay.
One that you won't find necessary
to brush away, or
if you do, let it be one I can
catch for you midair.

- Jacinta V. White

Feast

they both came
pain in rounded arms
like holding a basket full
of freshly picked string beans

laid them on the kitchen table
for the other to experience:
finger the pain’s bumps and bruises
the spots tender and tough
shake the dirt off, you know

one by one they shared
their story taking turns
holding the other’s pain
sometimes silent but still
holding the other’s pain
until one would nod
          throw it away

- Jacinta V. White