READ A POEM
Bonfire
by Diane Vogel Ferri
I see them together:
the connective tissues, the shared blood,
a counterpoint in firelight—and
something primal and holy in me turns.
Orange-yellow waves move over their glossy faces
and rotate like pinwheels in their eyes.
Her perfect tight-teeth smile and luminous hair.
His shoulders wide and strong, his great-grandfather’s silhouette.
White sparks sprinkle upward between us.
My diaphragm expands and my ribs crack in this invisible triangle.
I am stretched like early-morning yoga,
depth perception altered in this stasis.
Leaves flutter in the heat, tree frogs sing, dogs chase
each other in and out of deep shadows. His voice,
her laughter brings stillness to my maternal island
and resurrection to what time cannot take from my soul.
“Bonfire” by Diane Vogel Ferri, from The Volume of Our Incongruity. Finishing Line Press, 2018. Used by permission of the author.
Diane Vogel Ferri is a teacher, poet and writer living in Solon. Her essays have been published in
Scene Magazine, Cleveland Christmas Memories and
Raven’s Perch and by Cleveland State University, among others. Her poems can be found in numerous journals. Her chapbook,
Liquid Rubies, was published by Pudding House.
The Volume of Our Incongruity was published by Finishing Line Press. Vogel Ferri’s essay, “I Will Sing for You,” was featured at the Cleveland Humanities Fest in 2018. A graduate of Mayfield High School and Kent State University, she holds an MEd from Cleveland State University.
WRITE A POEM
Write a poem on a characteristic of a family member that is difficult to explain – your father’s laugh, your grandmother’s missing finger, your aunt’s drinking … .