Triolets for the Unsaid The sickly child sleeps, the house is silent, siblings are keepers. The sickly child sleeps, day becomes twilight, to play is a dream. The sickly child sleeps. Siblings are silent. Hung above the crib, the crucifix glints. Pure, polished silver, the crucifix glints. Siblings are clerics, in solemn tribute at their sister’s crib. The crucifix glints.
Puffs A plastic universe of crispy, cheese-dusted suns teases my chairbound mother this afternoon when her white blinds, rarely raised, grow dim as moon seas, and for pizzaz she pops orange spheres on her tongue, feels them dissolve into paste, tangy communion she washes down with ice- chilled ginger ale, swallows and hiccups, windpipe blocked, until I thump my fist against her back, and she coughs into a napkin, willing herself to breathe in puffs, eyes wide and wet.
Marilyn Westfall has published poetry most recently in UnknottingThe Line:The Poetry in Prose, through Dos Gatos Press. She wanders between Lubbock and Alpine Texas.
Grand Little Things 