Showing posts with label Carlene M. Gadapee. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carlene M. Gadapee. Show all posts

Thursday, March 9, 2023

GAS Featured Poet: Carlene M. Gadapee


Carlene M. Gadapee teaches high school English and is the Associate Creative Director for The Frost Place Studio Sessions. Her poems have been published by Waterwheel Review, Smoky Quartz, Margate Bookie, English Journal, bloodroot, Wild Words, and elsewhere. Carlene resides with her husband in northern New Hampshire.


American Still Life with Milk

 

In my imagination, a milkman jingles to a stop,

tossing slack reins across an aging draw-horse’s

ample back. With practiced hands, he deftly

rattles the empties into faded wooden crates

to fill again. Cooled bottles glisten and wink,

and condensation beads at the rim. Tiny rivers

run and spot and dry on the dusty wagon bed.

 

“Git on Bessie,” echoes in my ears, recalling

times I never lived, and bottles I never held.


 

Coming Storms

 

Sheet lightning stretches

and winks. The metallic

smell of ozone is in the air.

No snug little house cradled

by beach roses, no fence

to stop sand from sifting

over the threshold. No old

woman lives here, only

horseshoe crabs. Tiny plovers

scuttle across broken steps,

etching letters into dust.

Greying and splintered

shutters creak on rusted

hinges, unable to block wind

and rain. No one visits,

not even to straighten

a broken chair or to sweep

one careful hand along

a silted sill. There’s no story.

Just shadows and ghosts.