Patty Dickson Pieczka
Covid: Year Two
The gate to the next world is so close
crows perch there. Souls feather through,
pulled by the wheezing wind.
Our conversations are tangled in trees.
Words not spoken meet in the air and touch,
pull melodies from the mouths of azaleas
as goldfinches tremble the sunflower.
I want to drape myself in your laughter
the way the moon wears its rainbow shawl,
let your words spill through my hair
like a shower of stars
before night opens its creaking gate.
Siege
Words spit like fire,
like gunshot. They stampede,
break glass, crush bone.
Lights die as a deep blue nightmare
smothers the day,
swallows the moon.
The sound of broken bells
limps from a thousand churches
where blood flames from candles.
Darkness whispers me empty,
my heart a dried husk
dusting down to my toes.
Patty Dickson Pieczka’s second book of poetry, Painting the Egret's Echo, won the Library of Poetry Book Award for 2012 from The Bitter Oleander Press. Other books are Lacing Through Time (Bellowing Ark Press, 2011), and a chapbook, Word Paintings (Snark Publishing, 2002). In both the 2012 ISPS contest and the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest, she placed first and has had writing contributions in more than fifty literary journals. She graduated from the creative writing program at Southern Illinois University. Her short play won first prize from the Paradise Alley Players, and she received first place in the fiction contest at John A. Logan College.