A Home
Nothing fancy—a cottage, perhaps white clapboard
with a bright blue door. Oh, and flowers
tall as my thigh, a banshee of blooms that I would tend
and water and adore. This is what I wanted
before I had it. I thought my own walls
that I could paint any color I choose
would stop the tally I kept running
of all I didn’t have, like it did for my mother,
when as a child she graduated from shack to trailer,
stared up at the popcorn ceiling and thought
I have arrived. Permanence is a prayer all the poor
bow their heads toward, as if wanting is enough
to stop stability from its shifting, a foundation folding
at the slightest tremor. Finally, I am a fixed pinpoint
on the map, that once elusive wish is a solid floor
beneath me, but I wonder, maybe ungratefully
if I should have asked the world for more
than just a roof over my head.
*
Come Closer
Be it barstool
or grocery store line
when a man taps my arm
his words are shell-smooth,
sparse even, shucked clean
of the unnecessary,
talk like a foot path, sure
stone upon sure stone,
placed perfectly to lead
to a guileless glass window,
wide open. Look through
and see what he wants—
any woman, swallowing
his words whole.
*
Shauna Shiff is an English teacher in Virginia, a mother, wife and textiles artist. Her poems and short stories can be found in Stoneboat Literary Journal, Atticus Review, Whale Road Review, Rock Salt Journal, Cola and upcoming in others. In 2022, she was nominated for Best of the Net.
