Sheree La Puma

SUDDENLY WINTER

To a friend, lost.

Here’s the bad news.

The snow is knee-deep

beside the road where we stand praying

for God to stop raging against leafless trees.

He comes at us like a stranger, which means not

at all. And says nothing.

The snow hides the path,

the stone, the grave dug two years past

when Dad believing his life at risk turned

gun to chest, refusing to surrender to illusory

left radicals.

My faith is shaken.

You trust plan Q.

Granted, in the beginning

I listened to air escaping from lungs

like a pin to a balloon before the explosion.

I did not intervene. Fear is an algorithm posing

as a bridge.

I unzip my skin, trying

to understand the violence of hate.

Your heart blasts smoke from its split chambers.

Let darkness discover some other door, with no one

to witness its bitterness.

Sheree La Puma’s personal essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, WSQ, Chiron Review, SRPR, The Rumpus, Plainsongs, Into The Void, and I-70 Review, among others. Her micro-chapbook, The Politics of Love, was published by Ghost City Press. She has a new chapbook, Broken: Do Not Use, due out in 2021 with Main Street Rag Publishing. She received an MFA in Writing from California Institute of the Arts. Full Profile

Sheree La Puma is an award-winning writer whose personal essays, fiction, and poetry have appeared in or are forthcoming in The Penn Review, American Journal of Poetry, WSQ, Chiron Review, SRPR, The Rumpus, Plainsongs, and I-70 Review, among others. Her poetry was recently nominated for Best of The Net and two Pushcarts. Her micro-chapbook, 'The Politics of Love,' was published in August by Ghost City Press. She has a new chapbook, 'Broken: Do Not Use,' recently released with Main Street Rag Publishing. She received an MFA in Writing from the California Institute of the Arts and taught poetry to former gang members. Full Profile