Beacons | Jamie L. Smith
A small cat curled in my friend’s bathroom sink.
Half a glass of lemonade left to drink.
The urge to touch the rosewood floorboards
when the light slants just right. Waves
against breakwaters.
What saves us?
Everyone wants to know
if I’m suicidal,
my father had said,
from his nursing home bed,
As if that would be
such a bad thing.
Stacks of books I’ve yet to read, the needlepoint
I’ll finish and need to redo. Unplanted seeds
in tiny jars on my windowsill. The meteor showers
I keep missing. Squirrels scrambling on powerlines.
Curiosity—that’s
what keeps me here,
he said.
I’d still like to know
what will happen
with this next election
and with you,
what we’ll do
when the water runs out
or the border walls
cage us in.
The woman I love who I haven’t told.
My friends’ not-yet-written poems.
Brass rabbit bookends whose noses I dust
with my thumb
on my way out the door
most mornings. The tree that sways
by my friend’s Brooklyn balcony.
The lanternflies:
whether they’ll be back. The track
that skips on my father’s worn record:
what a wonderfulwonderfulwonderful world.
About the Author:
Jamie L. Smith is the author of “The Flightless Years”, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press (November 2024). Her chapbook “Mythology Lessons” was winner of Tusculum Review’s 2020 Nonfiction Prize and is listed as notable in Best American Essays 2021. Her poetry, nonfiction, and hybrid works appear in publications including Southern Humanities Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Red Noise Collective, and anthologies by Indi(e) Blue, Allegory Ridge, and Beyond Queer Words. Please visit jlsmithwriter.com for more information.