Gina Ferarra
Between Us and the Sky
One canopy of cloth
named in three syllables,
sometimes ruffled, vowels and double
consonants, hands
gripping close to the curve,
the inquisitive, at the pole’s end,
the bamboo hook, supple stitched leather,
the mahogany handle, the eternally rhetorical
opening to an enviable span,
nearly wider than anything avian.
Mists and squalls fall in the moment,
the predicted and the unexpected,
canvases stretched taut, blacks, navys,
bladder-sized peonies proliferating an occasional red,
ribs extended, a tenacious opacity,
a history of sheltering beneath cloudbursts,
segues, separations, schisms
and a steadfast sun.
One Galactic List
The unrequited light years,
the stars perforating heaven,
the multitudes of constellations,
and important planets, even the unknown ones
waiting for discovery, for the right inquiry
to find their hazy light,
the gaseous glow never gangrenous but hopeful,
the glimmers of the nocturnal and epic,
ours and other galaxies have my gratitude
that you missed all of my failures,
the close calls and disasters,
the incidents that evolved
from situations to realities
leading to the raised glyph-like scars
or ones appearing in random segments,
distances between here and there
without ever leaving the body.
Rose Rosette
Needing more than to prune
and uproot, it was time, the hour
to burn, to douse flammable fragments
in one contiguous stream,
and follow with a strike not meant for extinguishing
each branch, the smaller canes
exaggerated with thorns and scarlet bristles,
irate extremities at the tips in kerosene
to destroy the mites, an unseen uprising
that came with the wind from any direction
causing the whites, always hesitant
to internalize before stopping,
quelling each rose to nothing more than memory,
the dark reds and pinks at one time
I brought you swaddled with nothing
more than wet tissue.
Gina Ferrara lives in New Orleans. Her collections include: The Size of Sparrows (Finishing Line Press 2006), Ethereal Avalanche (Trembling Pillow Press 2009), Amber Porch Light (CW Books 2013), Carville: Amid Moss and Resurrection Fern (FLP 2014), and Fitting the Sixth Finger: Poems Inspired by the Paintings of Marc Chagall (Aldrich Press 2017). She teaches English and creative writing at Delgado Community College. Her poetry has appeared in Callaloo, anderbo, Valley Voices, The Poetry Ireland Review, and others.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 