Authors /
Donna Pucciani
Donna Pucciani is a Chicago poet whose latest book is Edges.
Red Light, Green Light
A children’s game, to be sure, played on lawn, sidewalk, or ideally in the middle of the street when traffic abated. The leader...
Dear Jonas
How clearly I remember
the friend encased in metal,
her head sticking out of the iron lung
with row on row of other tubed children
staring at the ceiling, wondering...
Thoughts while watering flowers
Quiet.
Even the locusts have vanished,
taking their strange invisible castanets with them.
Where are the birds? Too silent, for June.
The longest day was yesterday....
Peter at eighty
Peter rides his bike into the morning.
Today he flies through the forest
early enough for the deer to emerge,
watching him and thinking how odd a being...
Cloudscape
When a cloud
becomes a ragdoll or a sheep,
the Madonna’s face, a sidelong
glance, rainmaker in April,
ice-truck in December,...
After the earthquake
Around the table, we drink coffee
in small cups, peel oranges
with little knives. Crumbs of cake
dot the blue cotton tablecloth
like chunks of houses all over Umbria...
The discipline of gratitude
I am told to be gratefulas I wake each morningwrapped in the unfolding blanket of dawn,shake off the moon, dying stars,and taste the beige-gray breathof incipient day....
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Carmen and Pasquale at Bergamo Airport
You stand side by side, i miei cugini,the Italian version of "American Gothic"bisected by iron security gates, to watch ussnaking in inches toward X-ray machines....
Your side of the bed
It’s time to rotate the mattress.Your side is well wornfrom the gravity of heavy sleepwhereas mine has only the barestoutline, my small frame...
De-icing the plane
A small black truck huddlesbehind one wing, buried in a shroudof smoke. Exhaust fumes? fire?No. A cloud of detergentbillows over the plane. When every suitcase...