villanelle

Thirteen

I’m listening to the radio
and falling in love with love.
I’m thirteen and what do I know?

I think of guys and what they have below:
a mystery I know nothing of.
I dream as I listen to the radio

of lips and hands moving to and fro
edging nearer to what’s above.
I’m thirteen and what do I know?

No guy has yet made me glow
or held me close like a glove.
All I have is yearning from the radio.

And it’s not that I want to be a ho.
Too fresh? I’d give him a shove!
I’m thirteen but I know what I know.

I’d just settle for the chance, though,
to experiment. I’d love a hand to cov-
er a part of me while I listen to the radio.
I’m thirteen and I just want to know!

Villanelle

For ReadWritePoem

Here's a villanelle I wrote for a page in an altered book I made for my mom last year. It describes the day I was born. My dad was attending school about 3 hours away and when he got the call, he jumped on a bus but there was a snowstorm and it took him all day to get to my mom. They'd only been married for nine and a half months and didn't even own a car. This was back in 1949.
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The sky she was born under was full of snow
and her father barely made it on time.
All day he traveled by bus and it was so slow.

Each beat of his heart was yearning to know
her, the missing part to their rhyme.
The sky she was born under was full of snow

that fell like poetry on the world below
creating a clean world so sublime.
All day he traveled by bus and it was so slow.

He wanted to push the bus to make it go
faster and to help it climb
but the sky she was born under was full of snow

and that bus puttered along like on tippy-toe
and her dad thought it was a crime
as he traveled all day by bus so slow, so slow.

Finally, he arrived just in time for the afterglow
of birth, their poem written for a lifetime.
The sky she was born under was full of snow
and the love that traveled to her was forever and slow.