Animated and Other Poems

By Susan Shea

Animated

Every week, at the library
you filled shopping bags high
with children's picture story books
for me to drive home for you
 so we could go innocently

grow up together 
in full color, away from the
cemented melancholy
I crawled through
away from the parent-centered
place where I wasn't seen
or heard too much
			
you gave me a second chance 
to be what children see

your life
let me turn pages, hear
		
formulas from forest friends
ways to be when everything
you are, and look at matters
			
where everyone's a pal
with a message just for you

In the Game

Under my skin I carry a chess set
with pieces still moving from my
childhood lessons for life's stages

I was taught to consider roles of all 
the men, protect the queen, stand 
tall behind the pawns when need 
would make it so, go for the win

ride my muscled unseen horse
through adolescent witless hours

bishop through motherhood's broken
heart,  I learned to gather up the
knights, create warm fires within
my castle walls

jump or slide from move to move
again, again, with polished pieces
on my checkered board
		
ever-full boxes of strategy
ready for worlds without end
		

Weed

Still a child, when you bought your mansion
I became a frequent weekend visitor, lifted
like air from my concrete neighborhood

I was favored to have a rich uncle, found
myself sitting pretty on a mountain, like a
beheaded dandelion who just found out
wishes were part of its nature

I started out with hollow stem, jagged leaves
that knew nothing of fancy, chosen hours

spent among accomplished bronze figures
antiqued with meaning, sitting beneath
masterful oil paintings with views of
overseas places, and people in finery

seemed to be better than me, smarter than me
foreign enough to force night into day

helped me find my eyes, look for deepness
in my roots, become part of a vast and
boundless family

Susan Shea is a retired school psychologist who was born in New York City, and now lives in a forest in Pennsylvania.  She has returned to writing poetry in 2023, and this year she has been published in several dozen journals including Ekstasis, The Bluebird Word, Last Stanza Poetry Journal, The Bookends Review, Poetry Breakfast, Book of Matches Literary Magazine, and The Agape Review, as well as three anthologies. Susan feels like she is coming alive again, and is filled with new purpose.  Recently Susan has had poems accepted for Feminine Collective, Military Experience and the Arts, Tiny Wren, Crowstep Poetry Journal, Green Ink Poetry, The Avalon Literary Review, and Clayjar Review.