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How to define the word
yellow?
Tart lemon that stings
your mouth; shining sun
that blinds your eyes;
deep blanket of daffodils
that caresses your face.
Yes, the yellow of petal
that defies early April
and its cruelty. Wild
and tamed flower, its
color reminds us
of the first light
of spring, the memory
that cannot be forgotten.
Copyright © 2011 by Linda Nemec Foster. This poem was first printed in Best Poems (May 2011). Used with the permission of the author.
All the men sit by themselves at small booths that hide the contour of their bodies. Only their pale faces are partly visible because of the cigarette smoke, dark glasses, and casual hand covering a mouth, a left cheek, a sullen forehead. All of them look away, as if they want to be somewhere else. But not him, the man closest to the camera’s eye, the man who looks like my husband disguised as a stranger. He stares straight at me. He knows that I know he knows. Something about his past.
In Poland, the land takes over everything,
unrelenting in its mission to regenerate
after the war. Fields overrun sidewalks,
train stations, street corners. Purple
flowers spill from the open windows of houses.
Queen Anne’s lace reigns supreme in parking
lots. Even the dead in cemeteries are affected:
(after the painting “Waiting” by Nancy Wanka)
Art does not imitate life.
Art anticipates life.
—Jeanette Winterson
No sacrilege here, only art. And not
the kitschy art of the Madonna of the Suburbs,
nestled in a bathtub grotto near the garage—
the limp shirts on the line, her only devotees—