Sample Poems by Alissa Sammarco

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Rain

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

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

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Everything I Owned

Rumpled hair, plain face,
blue jeans wrinkled at the knees,
a white paper bag and rainbow heart,
crisp and unstained.

I packed it carefully
so it wouldn’t tear,
guarded it from sharp corners
and coffee cup rings.

Brisk steps and rolling suitcases
catching flights to bright places,
while my fingers cramped
from paper handles that cut at my knuckles.

Even knowing the whole story,
I was out of place,
kissing the last of me.
This ticket across the plains,

back to my Ohio River Valley,
her hills, and filling my cup
with brown river water
to swallow all of my dreams.

Even knowing, I still wondered
how this paper bag became
the guardian of everything I owned,
and how suddenly it had come to this.

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Fishing on Holden Beach

I was 9 years old, at Holden Beach.
My father popped a beer, that pshhh and spssssh of foam
erupted.
The can was cool in my hand.
He scaled the flounder we caught
while its two eyes stared up at me.
I remember the thrill of catching it,
my father knee deep, casting over the waves,
feeling the fight as he handed me the rod,
him holding tight with me,
reeling it onto the sand.
In his powder blue polo and flowered speedo,
he aimed his Polaroid and took my picture,
red braids and that hideously beautiful fish.

It was 1974, the summer I tasted fresh fish and beer,
the summer Nixon resigned.
I sipped my father’s beer while he gutted and cleaned the fish.
The whining voice of our president lulled me
while I gazed at the transistor radio,
expecting Nixon might jump out of the box.
My father wiped his hands as he finished.
I tipped the can once more and handed it to him,
everything ending in the last sip
of warm beer on that August afternoon.
I didn’t know we’d never come back to that place again.

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Two Stepping in Ski Boots

I learned to Two Step in laced up leather ski boots.
My father lifted me up out of the bindings,
and stuck the skis crisscross in the snow.
He told me to slip the leather strap of each pole
over the skis so I wouldn’t lose them.

After skiing all day, we sat on the deck
watching skiers in puffy coats and knit hats
slide down the mountain.
I watched him pull off gloves,
tucking them in his fanny pack,
his tanned face laughing.

He took the wineskin from around his neck.
It was soft and brown with red piping.

“It’s a special technique. Hold it in front of you,
squeeze, and bite it off clean.”

Red wine dribbled down my chin.
He smiled and I grinned.

At four o’clock, the chair lifts stopped.
The sun was warm, and the band started to play.
My father took my hand and taught me how to Two Step.