TWO POEMS by Rodney Terich Leonard

ELEGY FOR SABENA
          1969-2007

                              eyes, loud-soft with crying and with smiles.
                                        –Gwendolyn Brooks

Sixty-months of a dreamed glare,
          away from Manhattan and Columbus,
                    avenues slick with year-round verse,
                              way up in back of the Poconos.

Much on which to muse,
          much for the notebook,
                    always some other someone
                              wasn’t always easy.

January was picturesque:
          squirrels threw bark into snow-covered brooks,
                    cooing daughter, clapping son,
                              Benjamin & Nina tickled toward warm-day stitches.

Away from Manhattan and Columbus,
          amid kitchen-counter TV,
                    at the tail-end of “Happy Birthday,”
                              each absence swollen.
 

AT LE DIPLOMATE

                    1601 14th St. NW
                    Washington, DC 20009

                    for my sister Ruby Denise
 

Afro & two-strand twists
Post-Classy Curl & high-top fade
Patient & citrus
Front window banquette—
How we sister brother.

Simply because I wonder
I’m not tryna be ‘faux-deep’—
What might sheet music
For “It Be’s That Way Sometimes”
Mean to an ear-trained pianist?

Hahaha:
Happiness? Happiness!
Wait—
Bent/swank
Happiness!

                         Obits
               Tucked away
Tonight   We won’t crossword repasts.
Instead we menu  pinot   soup
Holler   mignon     & mousse.

Are unabashed
Unpricked balloons
Hootenannying
Birthday & brain surgery & done gone.

Mama, shawl-like frayed & idiomatic,
           —Live & let live—
Taught us how to scan the iris for bullshit.
           Cedarly,
Which man’s neck-thick is worthy of lather.
Taught us that good beef is love.