GAS Featured Poet: Arvilla Fee

 Arvilla Fee has been published in numerous presses, and her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla travels with snacks, and her favorite quote is: "It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” ~ Henry David Thoreau. Website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

The Way You Waned

 

So round and full were you,

a beaming smile

upon your face,

 

the kind to wine and dine

and cast your light

around a room;

 

your gravity pulled me,

a tide so high

I lost myself

 

until you grew thinner,

then thinner still,

a mere razor

 

I could no longer hold

lest it leave a scar.

Middle-Age Monotony

 

creaking like an un-greased porch swing,

each bone protesting forward movements,

too stiff

too sore

one foot in front of the other,

one hand caressing an aching hip;

why do bodies give up so easily

when the heart is still throwing confetti

like it’s New Year’s Eve?

GAS Featured Poet: Arvilla Fee

Arvilla Fee teaches English and is the managing editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, including Calliope, North of Oxford, Rat’s Ass Review, Mudlark, and many others. Her poetry books, The Human Side and This is Life, are available on Amazon. Arvilla loves writing, photography and traveling, and she never leaves home without a snack and water (just in case of an apocalypse). For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other. To learn more about her work, you can visit her website: https://soulpoetry7.com/

Neurodivergent Processing

 

people pressing,

elbows and shoulders

jockeying for position;

there are so many,

too many,

and suddenly, I can’t breathe,

the air is hot and humid

with a million moving lips,

and there are lights everywhere,

florescent overhead,

luminescent signs saying open,

saying 50% off sale,

saying buy one get one free,

and the noise rises

up, up, up to the vaulted ceilings,

creating a ringing in my ears,

so many voices and sounds,

chatter, laughter,

the squeak of tennis shoes,

the man at a kiosk

asking if I want to try a sample,

a sample of what, I don’t know;

I can’t look at him,

can’t think, can’t hear;

I’m drowning in a sensory pool,

the water closing in over my head,

the smell of fish and pizza and tacos

nearly making me ill;

I strip off my jacket

as if the release of this one layer

will somehow free my body, my mind,

but it doesn’t—so, I walk outside,

leaving the crescendo behind

and stand, eyes closed, in the muted air.

Room to Breathe

 

I broke free of skyscrapers,

            free of concrete,

            free of freeways,

            free of suits,

office-gray cubicles,

long lines at the coffee shop,

overpriced bagels and lattes;

some called it a mid-life crisis;

I called it coming to my senses,

although I have to admit

the new yellow convertible

smacked of middle-40s.

But I never felt more authentically

me—the first time I saw a sunset

free of obstructions,

free of constraints,

free to blaze like flames

in the wide Nebraska sky.

 

You Know

 

You never really know someone,

they say—but you do know;

you know when he slips out at night,

you hear the squeak of the hinges;

you know he’ll be down on 5^th street

and that there are dealers and users

congregating like brothers and sisters,

lighting up, blowing out, snorting;

you know he’ll come back high;

he’ll hug you and be sloppy-mouthed,

pupils shrunk to pinpoint black;

you know that he’ll deny everything

in the morning—make that noon-ish,

when he finally rises and breathes

unbrushed breath over your shoulder

while you are trying to eat your lunch;

you know, but don’t say anything,

that he will not look for a job today,

nor any day after because that is work,

and he doesn’t have time for that—

you know he simply lives

to keep his hands from shaking

to keep the demons off his back.

 

Meet Me by the River

 

where the bank is muddy

and the water is cool

we’ll go on pretending

our daughter’s in school

 

we’ll imagine her home

at the stroke of four

hungry for dinner

banging the door

 

we’ll talk about boys

we’ll talk about plans

she’ll practice the tuba

she plays in the band

 

I won’t watch your face

if you don’t watch mine

we’ll go on pretending

things are just fine

 

that day didn’t happen

the freak with the gun

didn’t unload a clip

and put a hole in our sun

 

we never got the call

that ended our world

we’ll head back home,

see our little girl

 

meet me by the river

let it drown our tears;

what do we have left

but empty-nest years

Runner

 

legs stretched              long, lanky—

sweat drawing circles under armpits,

a heart beats, beats, beats, beats

in rhythm to trainers slapping pavement.

She’s going somewhere;

happiness lies

just over the next hill,

or is it the one after that?

The hills all look alike,

that row of pines no different

than the last,

but she picks up speed,

forges ahead;

perhaps one day she will outrun

herself.

 

GAS Featured Poet: Arvilla Fee

 

Arvilla Fee teaches English Composition for Clark State College and is the poetry editor for the San Antonio Review. She has published poetry, photography, and short stories in numerous presses, and her poetry book, The Human Side, is available on Amazon. For Arvilla, writing produces the greatest joy when it connects us to each other.

Time Out

 

I remove myself

from shoulders and elbows

jostling for position,

the stiff staccato beat

of a million harried feet.

I trade traffic lights

for skies pinpricked with stars,

high-rises for pines,

the smell of exhaust and sweat

for the dewy dampness of soil.

I curl cat-like on my blanket,

content to spoon the moon,

and fall asleep to the serenade

of crickets on the bluff.

Oh, Child of Mine

 

It was the doctor

who cut the cord,

your life blood,

your life bond to me.

It was she

who laid you

on my belly,

just above the womb

that once tucked you away

from the world.

But it was you

who cut the cord,

eighteen short years later,

cut the life blood,

cut the life bond to me.

It was you,

the untethered you,

who floated far beyond

the reach

of my now empty hands.

The Breath

 

of memories

fog my mind;

I can’t see through the pane.

I can’t see through the pain.

 

But I trace my fingers

in the condensation

and make a lopsided heart,

 

a heart that once held

the whole of you,

unbroken by tragedy,

 

that split second in time

that divided then and now

and left me unprepared

 

to navigate a world

never quite warm enough.