Verse For Alice
By Shelly Reed

number two

Today the sun’s rising looks like the locket
you once wore on its tarnished chain;

it is the color of harmonica notes spilling
through the screen door over wild vines,

the tint on your cheeks before company came
and sweet potatoes sweating brown sugar.

It is the hue of a bird’s breast at your feeder
outside the kitchen window

and the color lawn furniture turns
when left to the summer rains.

Never in my box of watercolors
did I find a shade to match you.

number one

Feral were the years
when your hair tendriled,
when we walked through the ravine,
auburn and blonde zinnias full wigged
and glorious as orioles drinking.

I think of you now
while the south wind moves
along marigolds, petals parting
to drink the flavored rain
of an August passed.

I gather bouquets of you;
errant stems spiral like hair
in humidity thick as gulch mud.
In the vase on my dresser
your face again, blooming.

Shelly Reed's poetry appears extensively online and in print, both nationally and internationally. Her work has featured with Poet Works Press, Seeker Magazine and Pulp Poetry. She's an introvert with the outward appearance of an extrovert and prefers books to food. Recent work appears with 42 Opus, Atomic Petals, Bubblegum Poetry and 2 River and Comrades.