CCD Presents: Poetry by Donna Wallace

by Donna Wallace

 

In a Driveway at Dusk

Match-strikes by
huddling boys
set fire to paper,
edges curl back,
now black
flags of flame.

Red-cindered
winds whirl
toward bitten-leg
girls hunting
with jars
for fireflies.

 

Mother Irons

a fold, a sleeve,
a sigh of steam—
heavy & hot.

Billows of
wrinkles, exhale
pillows of air,

fall in line,
form a crease.
Conformity

with a half
Windsor &
pin-stripes

boards the Erie
Lackawanna.
Dad unfolds

the Star-Ledger,
and the train hisses
to Hoboken.

 

Processional

At thirteen,
the nurse called your name.
You left and went to the examination area.
I waited, tearing recipes from torn copies of
Good Housekeeping, and balanced the checkbook.

At sixteen,
at Miami International,
I watched you walk the dim-lit ramp and board
the aircraft bound for Peru—you, a pinpoint of light
among many. I took the red eye home.

At twenty,
you ran past your dad and me—
you trained months for this day, this race.
We strained to catch glimpses of your bright shoes,
under our big umbrella and a long, cold rain.

This morning, the bridal salon—
you draw aside the heavy brocade drapes,
toss an angel’s glance to your sister. As I to wait
on a purple tufted settee, you disappear so quickly
into the changing room.

 

 

Donna’s first attempt at creative writing was in second grade. Her teacher’s red marks were a pretty color, but her grade wasn’t so pretty. Fifty years later (her teacher surely dead), Donna joined a friendly group of Winston Salem poets in 2009 and her real education in creative writing began. Her poems and articles have been featured in downtown’s Poetry in Plain Sight project, A Funny Thing: A Poetry and Prose Anthology by Old Mountain Press, and Christian Communicator. She has been a nurse, a seminarian and taught philosophy and religion at a community college. She is currently President of Winston Salem Writers and lives in Lewisville – among the poets, vineyards and bicycles there.

 

Founded in 2005, Winston-Salem Writers is a group of writers who write fiction, non-fiction, plays and poetry, and who care about the art and craft of writing. They offer programs, workshops, critique groups, open mic nights, contests and writers’ nights out for both beginning writers and published authors. For more information, click HERE.