Sample Poems by Alissa Sammarco

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Rain

Rain,
great gusts
of sweat and torment fall
all around me while you swim
away

in channels
fraught with treacherous
currents that flow past eddies
where pictures of you, me – us –
dissolve.

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Dosage

You asked the radiology tech,
“Do you increase the dosage with each treatment?”
She said, “No, it’s like antibiotics.”
She said, “You can’t take five doses at once,
but you can take one for five days.”

But it’s not at all like that.
If you took all the pills at once,
it wouldn’t hurt.
But if you took all the radiation at once,
there would be nothing worth saving.

It’s more like sunbathing,
falling asleep in the afternoon
until your skin turns red, blisters,
and peels off your shoulders.
No, it’s more like a roast
you left in at one-thousand degrees.

But if you roast it slow,
it will be moist, cured in its own juice.
The tender bits separate from gristle,
and even though you are never the same,
you can pick the poison from the carcass
and savor what’s left with a fine glass of Chianti.

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Melting

When did summer wear out his welcome?
Through Christmas, he dropped lightning bolts
and watched the oaks finally shed their leaves.
He watched as deer rutted and pulled up saplings
looking for true love.

Yesterday, shoes by the door, I stepped outside,
two, no three steps to the newspaper
when winter cut my tip toe run.
Oh, how you deceived me
with daffodils and December roses,
that you would stay just a little longer.

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The Crossing

Father crossed the threshold.
His eyes were starlight,
sparkling as he unveiled
a drawstring purse made of gilded leather
and marked with hieroglyphs,
Ra and Isis crossing the River Styx,
holding hands as they pass
between monuments that serve only men.

Coins clinked as they fell,
calling the faithful home.
Ra and Isis casting long shadows
over pyramid and sphinx.

He placed the purse in my hand,
chanting incantations as his fingers
traced the hieroglyphs,
passing on the magic of all that is buried
and drawing a map of where not to dig.