THE CEMETERY IS FULL OF HEARTS
floating above slush or wrapped
in the plush arms of bears
propped against gravestones.
Ablaze with Valentines today
it doesn’t resemble a mostly abandoned
part of town with desiccated plants
poking out of broken pots.
And the dead are snug
in Colorado dirt a mile high
and six months under snow
even through frost so hard
it cracked our driveway—encased
a koi in ice, trapped it half-
protruding from the surface
of the pond. In England
my brother visits my parents’
pristine graves every week
occupied twenty years before
anyone expected. He finally
relented, decorated them
with plastic flowers
because the weather
is different now and fresh ones
are too soon sodden or parched.
So in my parents’ corner
it’s forever spring. Like this
cemetery in full bloom in February—
scarlet profusion at the graveside
throbbing against ice
spilling from every plot.
IMMIGRANT ORCHARD
Our little corner of England didn’t burst
or bulge as my parents crammed our narrow home
with swelling populations of purple and orange.
Refusing confinement by damp, gray skies
dome-bellied figs in our yard bristled crimson
as they split below giant green-handed leaves. Fat
clusters of sticky grapes squatted in stained
wooden crates in the garage, thickening the air
into violet clouds, crowding out the odor
of engine oil. Beside windows foggy with winter
persimmons sucked up steam, dreamed
the ripening dreams we tore apart—fleshy lobes
slipping down our throats—our mouths left
with the abundance of bright, abandoned days.
PIAZZA DI SANTA MARIA IN TRASTEVERE, ROME
September 2022
Italy elects a descendant of its fascist
past, still the people I speak with
in the Eternal City are unperturbed
one more who will come and go
while they pass through ancient streets
with so much history pressing
at their backs, affairs of the day shrink
to cats fighting for scraps
in alleyways. I hope they’re right.
The sacrament of preservation
is everywhere, yet they’ve erected
a giant screen in this sacred square
that blares with fluorescent ads above
the twelfth-century basilica’s
honey stone, the mosaics glittering
on its façade. I flare and ache
for this lovely, altered place—
almost miss the procession
across a cobbled street, past
Bramante’s fountain, where nuns
in blue habits dart back and forth
in greeting. Casa del Rifugio
is carved by the palazzo door
and a sign for free language classes
Per gli immigrati. All welcome.
People chat with neighbors
or check phones as they cross
a baroque portal into the words
of a new country. Centuries
of ritual settle in this corner, root
me to the spot while teens flock
on the steps of Rome’s oldest fountain
too many to hold them, but it does.
PICK-YOUR-OWN CHERRIES
My parents, aunts and uncles fill
buckets spilling fat red drops
into dirt, sit beneath low-hanging
branches so cherries graze lips
eat straight from the tree
morning bone-dry and pulsing
with heat. Laughter, stories
they tell straight to camera
and decades later my brother and I
watch on his sixtieth birthday,
unable since they began dying
to see them move and talk
again. What will take them
is thickening in their bodies
already in the continuous light
of the orchard. My father
and uncle within two years.
Though it seems impossible—
cloudless sky, voices pressing
into air, hands cupping fruit
they might pass to us through
the screen or we reach in
and take, touch fingers stained
with juice. The cherries
are little crimson explosions
in the unearthly brightness.
And looking directly at us
they repeat over and over
how much they wish
we were there.
TEMPORARY GODS
I’m willing to slip
into anything metaphysical
these days—be as immortal
as wild mint, as dark matter
gathering the edges of the cosmos.
Searching for temporary gods
I find geese—unheard
until the turn, cries a clang
of scrapyard cogs, jostling
in and out of the muddy pond.
I can’t fathom why
they’re still here—
bow anyway
to the sturdy lines they’ve tunneled
through heavy light
for thousands of winters,
so I won’t forget how
to worship what can rise.
Maria Surricchio is originally from the UK where her parents emigrated from Molise and Campania in the fifties. She now lives near Boulder, Colorado. A life-long lover of poetry, she began writing in 2020 after an extensive marketing career. A Pushcart Prize nominee, her work has been published in Blackbird, Salamander, River Heron Review, Poet Lore, Chicago Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She has a BA in Modern Languages from Cambridge University and an MFA from Pacific University. Her debut collection won the 2026 Longleaf Press Book Contest and is forthcoming in spring 2027.
OVUNQUE SIAMO 