Poetry is both prayer and playground for Sammi, grief and nature often sharing space with metaphor. Clouds, birds, and humor provide levity to her poetic work.
In that part of the universe where she is not Catherine O’Hara butKate Mcallister,
I wonder if she argues with her husband about how to hang the pine swags–
I wonder if she knows, like I do now, that a swag is the oblong cousin of the wreath.
The water is lower in the stream now,
And a bird sits in it, exhausted, remembering.
Remembering that living is never just living.
She looks at me, as if to say,
It’s a mixed bag, isn’t it?
Wanting’s easier than wishing.
I want a puppy. I want a sandwich. I want that back.
See?
Save me, we say to each other,
I am not safe here.
I am not safe at home.
I am not safe.
You can keep that, / he seemed to say.
He meant my body.
No one ever gave me a gift like that.
If I poured myself a cup of glitter / to dunk a cookie in / it would feel good to be / so absurd.
But I'm a grown person— / an artifact, or worse, / a filing cabinet full of them.
But what can one person really say to another?I folded your laundry.There are bones in the trashcan.YouLookSoNice.
I always assumed,even when I was nine,that I was fulfilling something for you.A dream that I decidedall men whoonly have girlsmight dream…
