Sarah Sarai
Time Passes and Fails
The car pulls up
to the wharf,
a man pops the hood,
the body falls into the bay.
Time passes and fails,
tears run over creek beds
no one pays their bills
or makes payments go away.
Mothers stare into space
or blue heaven for a sign
God has noticed.
They guess it takes
a whole lot,
a whole lot,
to hold His roving eye,
more even than history.
Just saying.
Keyboards yearn for
the soft pads of fingers
on their many cheeks,
for treatises to be typed
so the kit,
the kaboodle,
have meaning.
Meanwhile, children are built
for his pleasure.
Meanwhile, her father got her
most days.
Meanwhile,
she got a good allowance.
The story where
the father meets her
at an airport?
Over and again.
Personalities are split like logs.
(It's exercise.)
Put 2 & 2 together
in a bedroom.
The divers help Forensics.
The knot implicates
the man.
No one pretends
Justice is served,
there's that,
no one pretends and
the man is in jail.
For the sake of poets
we say the sun rises
and sets but it is
the earth that moves,
trying to feel warm.
Inheritance
When golden rings
ringed ruby as
wind-ruffled
bird-throats
came your way,
an inheritance
from an old man
warm as a winter
porch glassed-in
to focus sunlight
on wicker chairs,
Dutch Masters,
a knitting wife
who smiled you
his paper kingdom.
Had you ever
been given any-
thing so grand?
Sarah Sarai’s poems have appeared in The Wallace Stevens Journal, Boston Review, Pool Poetry, Ascent, Yew, EOAGH, and other journals. Her collection, The Future Is Happy, was published by BlazeVOX. She lives in New York and works as an editor.
Return to January 2014 Edition
The car pulls up
to the wharf,
a man pops the hood,
the body falls into the bay.
Time passes and fails,
tears run over creek beds
no one pays their bills
or makes payments go away.
Mothers stare into space
or blue heaven for a sign
God has noticed.
They guess it takes
a whole lot,
a whole lot,
to hold His roving eye,
more even than history.
Just saying.
Keyboards yearn for
the soft pads of fingers
on their many cheeks,
for treatises to be typed
so the kit,
the kaboodle,
have meaning.
Meanwhile, children are built
for his pleasure.
Meanwhile, her father got her
most days.
Meanwhile,
she got a good allowance.
The story where
the father meets her
at an airport?
Over and again.
Personalities are split like logs.
(It's exercise.)
Put 2 & 2 together
in a bedroom.
The divers help Forensics.
The knot implicates
the man.
No one pretends
Justice is served,
there's that,
no one pretends and
the man is in jail.
For the sake of poets
we say the sun rises
and sets but it is
the earth that moves,
trying to feel warm.
Inheritance
When golden rings
ringed ruby as
wind-ruffled
bird-throats
came your way,
an inheritance
from an old man
warm as a winter
porch glassed-in
to focus sunlight
on wicker chairs,
Dutch Masters,
a knitting wife
who smiled you
his paper kingdom.
Had you ever
been given any-
thing so grand?
Sarah Sarai’s poems have appeared in The Wallace Stevens Journal, Boston Review, Pool Poetry, Ascent, Yew, EOAGH, and other journals. Her collection, The Future Is Happy, was published by BlazeVOX. She lives in New York and works as an editor.
Return to January 2014 Edition