Two Poems by Marianne Szlyk

Walking Past Mt. Calvary Cemetery in Winter

 

The last snow (for now) melts under soft gray skies.
Even now it clings, like cobwebs, to corners.

 

The holly hedge’s red berries and sharp leaves
hold the eye until the next snowfall.

 

Geese graze for grubs on the hillside.

The size of toy ponies, they do not fly.

 

Just like the waxy magnolia, the spiky cypress,
the leafless, last black locust,

 

they persist.
 

Somewhere in the city a woman on a patio
spoons sorbet.  The nearby quince blooms.

 

Somewhere else a bronze nude on a tabletop confronts
the indoor birds of paradise, the bittersweet.

 

They too persist.

 

 

 

Looking Out to Spectacle Island in April

 

The beach this time of year
is nothing but rocks.

She ignores the man
who is placing one
on top of the other,
trying to balance them.

She ignores his dog.

 

She is waiting for the summer
of bare-chested boys in shallow water,
baseball on the radio,
and the reggae ice cream truck
with its flavors
of soursop, mango, and rum raisin.

 

She is waiting.

 

 

 

Marianne Szlyk is an associate professor at Montgomery College, Rockville, and a member of the D.C. Poetry Project.  Her poems have appeared in Of Sun and Sand, [Insert Coin Here], What's Your Sign?, and Something's Brewing.  Other poems have appeared in Jellyfish Whispers, Aberration Labyrinth, Linden Avenue Poetry Review, Napalm and Novocain, and The Ishaan Literary Review.  This April she will be among the performers at DC's Performetry: Old Poems, New Poems, Your Poems.  Her poem, "All About Rosie," is among poet Mike Maggio's 30 Poems by 30 Poets: A National Poetry Month Celebration at http://mikemaggio.net/wordpress/?p=643