Rebeca Parrott – Four Poems


 

The Thirty-Minute Rule:
A Prose Poem

The waiting was the hardest when watermelon was dessert. After the roast beef and sandy pickles, dark-eyed Aunt Deedee sliced the oval treasure in six symmetrical pieces, watermelon juice dribbling to the patio from grateful lips and eager fingers. Above the smack of sticky lips, the splash of the waves tantalized us beyond the brushy dune. (We were always very careful not to eat in sight of the sea. That way, we hoped, its magic would not lure us in too early.) But I could hear its transparent music swirling across the feet of sandpiper scavengers, the liquid creating ribbons on the beach. If I could just dip my hands in, I wouldn’t swim or spoil my supper with a ruptured stomach. I just want to feel the brisk tide wash the sweet saliva from my freckled face, to see the bulldozer of sandcastles implode upon itself, to drift amid the rolling waves, to float above the ocean floor.


 

Aconcagua Skies

The clouds, like Aetna,
ejected a plume of
smoke, which hung
suspended—as if Time
stopped or Air
died or simply
forgot to
move so fast.

Call them fields, or
blankets—these snowy
cotton ranges.
The clouds do not care, moving
in herds and grazing on
the blue sky at
thirteen-thousand feet.

Rhythms and ridges, valleys
and peaks of texture just
beyond my frosty touch—

the Aconcagua skies
evade me as we float
across a cloud continent.


 

Young Love

Serafina, grey-
eyed Anne Shirley gone awry,
lets out a vixen’s
scream. Cranes startle. Turtles dive,
submerged in liquid refuge.

All nature scurries
from the feminine shrieker,
except the Farm Boy.
The freckle-backed, suspender-
tangled youth dashes to her.

Leapfrogging goats and
mad sows with the fervor of
Galahad, Farm Boy
arrives, wearing a new coat
of fresh sweat and blazing blush.

He finds her serene,
idly pulling at the edge
of a lilac. “Saw
a snake—right across my path.
Walk me back home, won’t you, Jim?”


 

Cowlick

Inelegant cow, troubled
by flies and thinning grass,
stops, and stoops
to address the pressing need
of ruffled hair. She licks,
ever so dainty, the curling
hide behind her front knee
in springtime. Lick lick.
The cowlick that the cow
licks. There is no
merit in hurry.


 

Author’s Statement on Beauty

Defining beauty is as inspiring as it is troubling. Despite the desire to infuse beauty into every poem, poets too are baffled by the challenge. Beauty exists—objectively and subjectively. Beauty can be seen, heard, and felt. Beauty uplifts, inspires, strengthens, gladdens. Beauty is worshipped, ignored, underestimated. Though we write a thousand more poems, we will still have things to say, wonders to discover about beauty. For beauty, like the universe, is a mystery.


 

Rebeca Parrott works at a library while spinning fairy tales, poems, and screenplays, drawing inspiration from her many travels. Her work has previously appeared in The Sherwood Forest Literary Review and at betterthanstarbucks.org.