The Touch of Your Hand

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

It’s all well and good when the whole descends

to parts, but when it happens the other way

around, all hell breaks loose.

The scent of my mother’s “Here’s My Heart,”

Avon Powder drifted from bedroom to hallway,

from hallway to car, from car into church,

and finally settled in the hymnal she handed to me.

All that just to create a void for the mass

to fall into and me with it.

Prior to heaven, when I parted the waterfall

in front of my cave, I believed in the holy,

and my hat had wings, and I sat with black crickets

as they sipped the midnight.

What does any of that even mean?

It means ghosts respond to affection,

and baby sea-turtles scramble to the sea,

never to feel the shore again, and most poems seek

to awaken.  This one is meant to drowse because,

despite previous terrors, sleep

is still the safest place, and there are ghosts

who need the touch of your hand.

Little Pieces of Mountains and Wings

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

I’ve yet to hear cows discuss frivolous subjects.

When I left home that day, the house lifted

onto chicken legs and followed me.

I went down to the creek to look for therapeutic rocks,

where it was hard for the house to get down there,

but the cloud mother made it, with her lingering cough,

and breath of beer. I collected as many rocks as would fit

into my red windbreaker’s pockets. I found a hawk’s feather

with somber hues, and carefully carried that with me as well.

Back then, there were no humdrum days. I started thinking

there was a “you” in everlasting life, and was glad,

and walked through tunnels of autumn trees

on my way back to the cows to show them the rocks

and the feather.  Along the way I saw a pair of trousers hung on a laundry line,

trying to walk the wind. I leaned over the fence, knowing

the cows had me in their luminous, dark eyes.

One black and white cow twitched its ears, lifted its head, and said,

with a mouth full of grass: “Go home.

There are unwanted peonies and wisteria waiting.”

After a long time, I turned away, thankful my pockets

were full of little pieces of mountains and wings.

Back Then

by

Radiance Angelina Petro

Thursday mornings, the library on York Road,

would throw dozens of disgarded books into the dumpster.

You can bet I climbed in and saved as many as I could.

Back then, I went from disaster to disaster seeking out

survivors of car wrecks and plane crashes, carrying the wounded

to safety. As tragedies unfolded, I was there—

a well-traveled sun retelling the night, out in the open,

where kids slid down twisting slides on the playground,

cudgels of thunder beating clouds into tornados–I was there

shielding the little ones—there were already too many poems

about graves, and dammit to hell I was going

to find shelter for each and every one of those kids.

I learned every step cultivates the way, and immortality is ill,

and who knows why.  But I was there–thwarting death’s heavy demands.

I carried the indwelling Christ, and it was my God given task to save the world.

Christmas Eve, 2005

By Radiance Angelina Petro

One December midnight, on the corner of Liberty and Main,

light snow falling on his shoulders–a man stood wearing full Highland

dress, near a street lamp, playing Amazing Grace on the bagpipes.

I remember thinking: “What the hell?” I walked a little faster.

He stood, staring somewhere far away, notes swirling notes swirling snow,

swirling breath, swirling time–expanding time, spiraling time over drones,

and drones under time, through the night.  I listened, snowflakes falling on my eyelashes—

Amazing Grace swirled over and over, each ending a beginning, a circle

in my chest. I listened until I started getting too cold.  There were presents

to put under the tree, stockings to stuff, I had an hour’s drive home.

I began turning away.  How he could stand the cold I don’t know.

What I do know is: never before, or since, have I ever been so found.