For my friend weeping at the coffee shop
Because he is reading a poem about peonies
which is really not about peonies
but maybe about prayer, the truest kind,
or about grief and how we’re spared
a home in its depths, given just enough soil
to catch our knees, collapse in the dark,
stay until we remember some purpose
beyond pain, past uncertainty,
begin to uncurl under a faint light that insists
on pulling us up, breathing us
nursling green, tender bloom,
this unimaginable bravery to come undone
and still be summoned by trembling touch
to a life that wants us wholly, here,
a delicate beauty amid so much else
we call beautiful
— the wild pen,
these rivered lines,
the morning shaken open.
*
Briefly
As I check out Ocean Vuong’s “On Earth We’re
Briefly Gorgeous” at the library, the man
behind the counter eyes the cover, notes
he keeps waiting.
“For what?” I ask.
“To be briefly gorgeous.”
I laugh. His face, sunned pink under his baseball cap,
breaks into a grin.
“Every morning when I look in the mirror, I wait.
Is today the day?”
“That you’ll be briefly gorgeous?”
I smile wide, chest sugared,
body leafing, as it knows it can.
He is not unhandsome, tall, maybe late 50s,
light olive button-down shirt over loose jeans,
reddish-brown graze of a beard.
“Nope, still hasn’t happened, not even
briefly,” he says, cheeks bright-winged,
winking warmth in his eyes.
I insist there must be something to see
and — to myself — to love.
He refutes.
We keep chuckling.
“One day,” I offer as he hands me the book,
along with a tale of humpback whales. “One day, you’ll see
— forget briefly, you’ll be enduringly gorgeous.”
I leave, bounty in hands, cocooned by his mirth,
and watery, too, punctured by how it happens.
One moment we’re wrapped in our busy lives.
The next we look up,
a sudden intimacy
to scour everything clean.
*
Naila Francis is a poet from Philadelphia. Her poems have appeared in Reckoning: creative writing on environmental justice, the Healing Verse Poetry Line, Voicemail Poems, North of Oxford and Wild Greens. Her first poetry album, “Wonder Unsung,” a collaboration with guitarist and producer Paulito Muse, was released in 2024.
Oh sweetheart!!! Oh Naila!!! Oh these poems … so punctured with beauty, so numinous! Gah! I am in love with them both, with your clear-eyed seeing and your nuanced telling
Dearest Rosemerry – your exuberant and generous response is such a blessing to me. Thank you. As you are someone who walks heart-first into the world seeing so much beauty in the midst of so much that aches, your own words always move and inspire me.
Oh, “Briefly” just made my day. What a little wonder!
Superb.
These are wonderful, thank yoh
Beautiful. I loved Ocean Vuong’s book, so your poem really spoke to me.
I did, too, Lori. His writing is so stirring and evocative. I love listening to him speak, too.
Naila, I absolutely love how you paint encounters, share such depth & love of this world.
Thank you so much, Heidi. Moments like these feed my heart and spirit.
Oh, Naila, two more wonderful poems. I was especially touched by
” Briefly”. I had a similar encounter of ” sudden intimacy” at of all places…the Deli counter at the Giant Store yesterday.
I got into a conversation with the man standing next to me while we waited for our orders. He told me that he didn’t usually get an order there but his wife died recently so now he was having to get his own meats and cheeses. I asked him about his wife and how long they had been together. He said for 40 years. His grief was palpable.
Their home is in nearby Flourtown. They had just one son who lives at a distance. He does know his neighbors and has a few friends. He likes to take walks in a nearby park.
When I got my order, I reached out my hand to him and told him that I was glad to have met him and that I would remember him in my prayers. He thanked me and said perhaps we’ll run into each other again.
Thank you for the gift of your poetry
❤️❤️