Striped by Nancy Schatz Alton I am a knit hat: striped hat that I lost: burnt in my memory’s strongbox pattern of random colors: no pattern red draws colors together red joins brown, white blue, every line stronger for the red through line knit by Jen: I am pieced together seamed and broadened by stories […]
Category: Poetry
Falling Water
Falling Water by Nancy Schatz Alton I feel myself pushing against the sadness that wells up inside of me. Don’t let it out don’tletitout don’t-let-it-out. It’s a crushing wave. I let myself feel it in small spills— Seltzer that ruins the Sorry game we’ve played so many times. I say, “Throw away all the games: […]
Whoosh
Whoosh by Nancy Schatz Alton I am the swoosh of the square that shifts with the sway of my hips in my Grandma’s kitchen. Noodles hang from her ceiling. She over-seasons my cereal with sugar. She is sweet with swearing, short and she means it, “Here! You need […]
Sing It
Sing It by Nancy Schatz Alton We are still young. Our amazement still plays like a favorite song on the radio. It’s hard to hold our awe with all the bulletins coming in: beeps, alarms, no more rotary dial sounds for us. We are still young holding our young making new laps to […]
Love Song
Love Song by Nancy Schatz Alton “An idea, too, has a surface, a skin.” – from “The Problem” by Noah Eli Gordon The idea of you changes like the way my skin ages— more beautiful than I’d imagined the age spots like diagrams to shapes I’ve not yet explored like the triangle of […]
A Drummer Drumming
A Drummer Drumming by Nancy Schatz Alton “I’m a deep kettle whistle” -Hannah Ensor & Laura Wetherington I want to be the drummer playing “The Obvious Child.” No, I want to be the drum being drummed. I want the tapping, the metal reverberations—snapping popping pushing lifting drumming—drummed right into me until I am the dance. […]
Flight
Flight by Nancy Schatz Alton I covet your glorious locks so much that you give them to me for seconds. You throw your luscious brown locks of hair over my head. We look in the mirror at your mop over my crown and laugh, say I look good with your strands teasing […]
Fire
To write one true poem. The year begins, and I hear the words again: To write one true poem. From my wall hanging. The one I stop and read. The one about loving wolves over dogs. Make haste for your gifts. Prepare for the words to light you up. I don’t know which words are […]
Expectation
Expectation by Nancy Schatz Alton I want to write without expectation stealing these words. Still, I can’t quite describe the sound of heat filling this space. The way the light hits the plywood basketball hoop backboard. How being alone is so easy yet I love connection, too. Can you hear the heat being […]
Dec. 26th
Make a container of love strong enough to soothe: salty sweet shoreline.