Two Poems by Amy Soricelli

Love Leaves Me Blue

Blue combs my hair with his dark shadow hands in the dead of the night
smelling of cigarettes; Blue uses his teeth/removes my tangles
once a long braid down the perfect straight of my back.
The edges of empty/lost settle on the ground - the hair he cuts;
see them piled/chippy brown sniplets of high school feeling hair -
collects around the tiles on the bathroom floor...will find months later laying up in the sides
curled up, hidden.
Blue drapes his arms around me -leads me around in a blind-man-with-stick way

i feel around with my hands not trusting Blue-
the lonely rounded corners with nothing to hold onto; Blue smells danger
offers shiny coins for it.
Blue says "i love you" in hard pounding paragraphs stuck with pins against black paper
the rough on your hands leaves behind ash...
little words of ash.
Blue dances with knives in the sleeves of his coat
walks up the sides of buildings/ there are dogs with chains locked hard to the gates.
Blue whispers "you need me"
like a threat in the black starless night.

Weekend at the Cape

I took the sand away in a small pail -carried it lingering

across glittery pieces of rock - maybe stone.

there was no skipping but light light on the feet it seemed

always daytime there.

she lived on the top of the hill the very top

like ceiling clouds the air filled the mud room

slippers with tracking feet -

the umbrellas smiling always straight up like soldiers.

the wooden floors would crack the doors would creak -

no surprise behind curtains/the giggles trapped between the tiniest

rose buds as they danced around the hem

on my sailor-blue sneakers.

all sea glass in plates with the frozen smiling seahorse in its profile pose

delicate lace tableclothe/everything sprinkled with lavender;

slight breezes through open spaces in floorboards/

the sound of the ocean tapping at the door expecting to sit with arms folded on its lap.