Tag: grief

Basil

My mother kills basil.
Too much water.
Sodden roots.
Flooded.

But my basil survives.
No, it thrives.
Urban herb.
Persistent.

Care instructions: gut instinct.
Inch of water.
Mist leaves.
Sun.

To retrieve: clip bottom.
To slice: chiffonade.
DON’T RIP.
Fragrant.

Drop in Sunday gravy.
Ribbon atop pasta.
Drizzle balsamic.
Caprese.

Neurotic checks of soil.
Is it moist?
Or dry?
Repeat.

“How does it feel?”
“A walking stereotype,”
You joke.
“Nurturing?”

Something to care for.
Mothering living things.
Being childless.
Pet-less.

But I don’t agree.
It’s self care.
Or compulsion.
Control.

I’ll keep it alive.
There’s no alternative.
Committed now.
Principles.

Who am I kidding?
It’s entrenched behavior.
To kill.
Drown.

I’ll rip the leaves.
The dying ones.
For comfort.
Mine.

I’ve ripped the leaves.
Can’t bear decay.
Not mine.
Yours.

© 2022 Andrea Festa

Posted on by Andrea Festa

Retrospect

I resent the Spring
in all its pastel.

In all its pastiche
of a life now untouchable.

Of a life jelly beaned and jelly sandaled,
not one where hand soap is triggering.

Not one where memory is archived as
“on this day” trauma, but

“on this day” thirteen years ago,
I was skinny just because.

I was skinny last year
on account of simply not eating.

On account of why eat
what you can’t?

What you can’t do, I can’t do.
When you suffer, I suffer, too.

When you suffer April Fools’ gladly,
like the fickle month it was,

like the fickle purgatory that was your lungs
while the green teens had a spring in their step,

while the green pub crawlers strode mob deep
outside your window like missed opportunities,

outside your window with the decal shamrock
like you were a child, doesn’t that bother you?

Like you were only fentanyl fever-dreaming
and I was only Xanax not-dreaming.

And I was thinking today
that retrospect is a needling bitch,

that retrospect is unsolicited wisdom.
It taunts you in measures of time.

It taunts you like Spring does
with its good for nothing rose-colored glasses.

With its good for running air
that led me to the intersection tonight,

that led me back to you.
You, who is breathing from the open window.

You, who is.
And, therefore, I am also.

© 2022 Andrea Festa

Posted on by Andrea Festa

Happy Baby

Flesh, pink.
Not bubblegum, but
Winter White

frosting.
Two drops red, accidental
baby shower.

Fat, pink
toes.
Fascia of the feet.

First to
wiggle.
Voluntary.

Free.
Look! Baby is
kicking,

flexing.
Dumb,
happy baby.

Foot to
sky,
foot to mouth.

Fingers
navigate
metatarsals.

Find crystals
buried
in the ball.

Flush, pink
to white
and back,

fun with
bodily
autonomy

fostered for
months
in the womb.

Fascinating,
really.
How the

fine lines of the
hand
cannot

forge
a path for the
foot, but will

foretell
in tally marks
how many dumb

fucking
babies
you’ll have, ones that

fought
to be
born.

Fools.
I’m one of them.
But I swear, I’m happy,

baby.

© 2021 Andrea Festa

Posted on by Andrea Festa

Stray

A stoop is a stoop
to rest your new chunky heels,
even when no one cares
to notice them.
Even when the restaurant it belonged to
(where you both enjoyed
lambics and lobster once)
is papered in the windows.
Even when its cement is pockmarked
and narrow
and familiar,
but you’re sans a warm Hurricane
on a warmer summer night.
Even when you tip your feet
to the crescent moon
like a bored child,
not because they hurt
(for the first time)
but because you wish to slouch,
to recoil yourself invisible
in the black and amber lamplight
from the group of gentrifiers
sashaying the crosswalk in clean clothes
cut from caddyshack daddies
and Main Line mommies.

A backseat is a backseat
to rest your new beaded necklace
and beaded back sweat,
even when you know the Uber driver
won’t abduct you
and your textured forehead,
even though you’re now skinny,
just in time for the end
of hot girl summer.
Even when no pleasantries
(the ones you used to hate)
are exchanged,
and you take it personally.
Even when he pulls over too early,
and you object,
and he reminds you,
“The street is closed.”
Even when the corner
of 15th and Sansom
is stagnant sewer steam
and sad sidewalk day drunks
turned to night drunks.

A bar stool is a bar stool
to rest your new corduroy skirt,
even when it reeks of urine.
Even though they replaced
the women’s toilet with something
tacky and pearly and plasticky,
but your thighs
were anticipating “the usual”
stained,
but sturdy ceramic.
Even when you forget “the usual”
drink order (yours,
or his.)
Even when you order one more of this new
usual,
and you know the guy next to you
won’t drop something in your drink,
but you and your aging hand
cover it anyway.
Even when your friend doesn’t show
and you have work in the morning –
work you’re not prepared for –
and you forget how to commute,
which buses to which
subway cars to which
new overpriced lunchfare,
now that “the usual” is gone.

A front porch is a front porch,
even when a cat
chose to lay down and die
on it this afternoon,
its mouth agape,
teeth gnarled,
tabby fur flattened,
fooling the family into thinking
it was the family cat.
Even when after the panic,
it was a false alarm:
“It’s just the stray, everyone!”
Even though it did look eerily similar,
but different,
an unshakable alternate reality
where it just wanted to rest
its newly old head
somewhere it could call home.

© 2021 Andrea Festa

Posted on by Andrea Festa