Poetry: Selections from Serena Eve Richardson

Spirit Orb Sighting 

You spooked a Florida pastor

outwitted the experts

even I saw you floating around today

Someone on a podcast was

dragged home from a walk along

the swamp, their German shepherd

wouldn’t stop barking at the

ball of light through the reeds

The Practical Applications of Stars 

Stick them to the ceiling over the tub

and tell your toddler to look at the

stars, then rinse. It makes it easier in

the warm fog. Sing the lullaby, it helps.

 

Sprinkle starbrights onto cakes for glimmer.

Get a projector, you can wish in your

room. This will calm all of you, Mom’s okay.

Tonight the moon is trine in Uranus.

 

Magic wands snap fast, but a star on top

of your tree can be used year after year,

pluck joy from torn tissue paper and pine.

Press gems onto your child’s skin, watch them.

 

On clear nights, you can sit under eyes and

be meaningless as shadows are to stars.

Ultrasound

I look at my death

when I look at proof of you,

beloved beat to

love more than me, the last face

in this life I hope to see.

To Marlene 

You are smaller than I remember, and

you’re not wearing your maroon shirt

or cracking knuckles like you know how to

throw a punch at eleven, but I see through

your quiet brown crepe at the wedding today

straight to your grade school cruelty.

 

I’d like to call out, “You must be glad to see me

in my gown, I have plenty of clothes now,

much more than when you yelled, ‘Look, Serena’s

poor, she’s wearing the same pants every day!’

You humiliated me in front of the whole class

during a fire drill for laughs, how have you been?”

 

Music, the yoke sun is setting over ocean.

Me, a slash of red satin that says nothing again.

We all ignore how cruel the vast world must be.

A toast and the night ends, we all fall down

in rich fabrics humorless to children.

My Real Face 

You leave for work, and I put on my face—

my real face.

 

Funeral face, farewell face

bad-news-palms-over-sockets face

hospital face

bone-puppet-in-practical-clothes face

up-all-night-with-the-baby face

face that never finished that argument

face that thought I was alone

face that spills shadow

into my morning coffee

Serena Eve Richardson is a New Jersey poet, essayist, and singer/songwriter. Her poetry has been most recently published in Louisiana Literature, The Round, Good Works Review, Straight Forward Poetry, Pennsylvania English, Perceptions Magazine, The Rail, and Rubbertop Review. In 2019 she released her debut EP “Some Imaginings” as Cat Cameo, which features poetry that has been transitioned into song. Serena is a fan of live storytelling and performed at the 2019 Philadelphia Podcast Festival with the podcast RISK! She enjoys motorsports and Siljun Dobup, a samurai sword martial art in which she holds a second-degree black belt.