Impermanence
Today
I watched surf
seep into a footprint
that looked like yours.
Canals of toe depressions
melted
into waves.
The sole, the heel,
eroded
until form became suggestion.
The promise is
that sand shifts --
in summered light, or under
bruised sky nursing storms.
You cannot hold a handful.
It escapes fisted fingers.
And just as I start to grow old
my hand empties
but for finger nail
half-moon crescents
clawed into skin.
There are
no chasms between us.
Only oceans.
Lovers, Learners, Liars and Friends
We walk the ring of this circus
as we circle the fires between us --
yearning shimmers in corners,
like yellow shadows
beneath the door.
And with hands covering our eyes,
through unholy spaces between,
we see seconds flare long enough
only to watch them go.
Cynthia Ventresca spend her days working in community relations for a local utility, and her nights wrestling with words and studying for a degree in English from the University of Delaware. She has had work published in Eye on Life Magazine, Third Wednesday Magazine, Ted Kooser’s American Life in Poetry, 50 Haikus, Three Line Poetry, and Fourth & Sycamore. She was winner of the July 2018 Poem of the Month Contest, sponsored by Cosmographia Books.