(Excerpt)

"...The bird lands near me, resting with clawed yellow feet gripping into the veins of the stone. His feathers like snow sparkle. The tips of his wings blackened like a night without the moon..."

Fragments of Bones

"...sirens cut through the air. 

The man lies on the ground near the curb, holding his head—the helmet rolled onto the dying grass. Wheels still turning, the motorcycle rests by the divider. Mangled.  

People gather around. The boy keeps watch."

Cruel Child

(excerpt)

"I’d have to stand like that for what seemed like hours as he watched. Then he’d take me to get dry kernels of corn from our room full of grains we kept for the pigs, chickens, and ducks."

Disciplined Discipline

"...I would give up all to make the memories of your absence only but a dream,

a nightmare with sweet awakening giving birth to a new appreciation, 

holding each other’s gaze as rubies and emeralds flowing through time into eternity."

Past and Present Entwined

(Excerpt)

"...Like a disobedient youth, she runs wild in her mind,

imagining him, the scent of him,

the sense of smooth skin under her fingers..."

Radiating Love

(excerpt)

"...I didn’t want to tell him that my father was not dead, and I wanted to be sharp in my mind when he suddenly ends this charade of a funeral. I didn’t trust him..."

The Last Time I Saw My Father

"...Mornings and nights without the light
seem hopeless in rivers of lies..."

Living Above Your Fears & Into the Light

"...Crying didn’t help. Always made things worse. “I’m going to give you something to cry about,” was my parents’ usual response. Mom would hug and kiss me after cooling down and say sorry, but not Dad."

Why I Hate Yellow Peas

Poems: "Hidden Voices," "My Childhood/Nightmare," "Hurt by Him,"  "Not My Son," and "Living Above Your Fears"


5 Poems in 2020 

(excerpt)

"Colorless syllables linger across five thousand miles of phone lines. In desperate tears, I curl up in my maroon recliner, and I ask on the first day, 
“How do I exist deprived of my daughter? Without her here with me.” 

To Live

"Her eyes move side to side—not only the usual open and close

motion like other dolls—as if she’s searching for something in her peripheral vision. Maybe for

something unseen to us. It makes her look more like a real baby"

E. Izabelle Cassandra Alexander

Selected work