A GROWN CHILD

A GROWN CHILD

she is happy, cheerful
clothes of bright orange
age on her face – tanned

she worried about space
where she and her daughter
would sit

laying blue towels
advertising the Yankees
on beach chairs at the pool

satisfied her - as she
lifted her daughters arms
to cross on her lap

a mother claps – smiles
rewarding herself – a
job well done

watched her walk up
a hill – empty handed
knew her hands soon

filled with pain and
love – as she wipes a
mouth of a grown

child – who doesn’t
know her name – as
she carries around

a heart of glass as
it breaks into pieces
of pain – of love

but she continues
day after day to care
for a grown child

wipes her mouth –
she wants her to live

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved

Your Imagination

YOUR IMAGINATION

How one sided love can be
when one side feels but
scorn
how one sided life has been -
had it begun the day I was
born?

Too young to know we never
shared each others laughter -
Too young to know we never
played each others game -

One sided life - a one sided
home - where half is lived in
and another is a place without
signs - keep out. . .

Older - I know my heart broke
and useless tears covered my face -
only for a reason why?
you shared so few words - to
carry it on as if you were never
there.

Perhaps you weren't

I imagined you?


Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved

CHILDREN NEVER CHOOSE

CHILDREN NEVER CHOOSE

I did not choose to be alone on a play ground
to push my favorite shoes in dirt to swirl
the merry go ground - at a slow pace. . .
Toss sand on a slide, hoping not to stick
to metal - wearing dresses - then.

I did not embrace the thought of walking
alone - down Avenue A passing the pharmacy
where my mother received her little round
pills - down Avenue A where my leg's carried
me over red ants hiding between cement.

I ran, ignored the neighbors who waved.
Told to rush - to run - not walk - to pick
up pills before mother died - she told me
so. . .

I did not choose to crawl up our staircase
to my grandmother's house, stopping midway -
to sit alone on the landing. . .
hearing mother's Irish temper explode, but,
she is Irish, I was told. . . and in a minute
- it was over, and she smiled.

I knew Grandmother stood tall at the top -
her apron stocked with chew gum - never gum.
Her hands in the pockets of her apron. . .
A finger to her lips - my little legs
crept up the stairs - she whispered, "New
cookies from Woolworths" -

A Sicilian, upstairs talked different from
mother downstairs, but I cherished both. . .
I did not vanish when I had to ride a
borrowed bike - or smile when a cousin
near the border of Vermont - gave me another. . .
I loved country rides on back roads.

I did not choose to flip flop in white
panties in a bright yellow pool while
Grandmother watched from her window
on the second floor - guarding her white
sheets - hung perfectly straight on a clothes
line draped from a garbage shed to our back
porch. . .

I played near her pear tree, her grape
vines, tomato plants, and beans. . .
close to a shed where dolls slept.
A shed furthest from our cellar door
where I split my toe - on a nail, on a
door where grey paint peeled near rusted
handles - opened to a place where the
boggy man lived.

I did not enjoy watching mother press
pretty dresses for me to wear - watch her
knit, sew, and leave everyday for work -
help pay bills - I created at birth. . .

I did not know my parents could not hold
me - three months - stared through glass
to see their child hooked to lines attached
at her forehead. . .
I did not single out my parent's but I felt
lucky I survived to be their chorus. . .

I did not hand pick my socks, shoes, or
choose the style of my - hair - mother cut
ringlets - stored them inside a red
and white striped box, clips of white
still attached - closed with white ribbon.
Curls chopped off because at five - a school
nurse warned every mothers in our neighborhood
about bugs - about bugs - bugs jumping from
one head to another.

But - I may have selected to stay alone while
playing at the playground. But, I don't
remember why?

Nancy Duci Denofio
all right reserved

A WAVE OF PEACFULNESS

NOTE - This was written during all of Mother Natures Upheaval

A Wave of Peacefulness

I want the moon to coat
a natural skin onto the earth -
saturate the ground with peace.

I want the moon to cast
peacefulness . . .
covering the world -
covering you, and
covering me with clear
shadows of ourselves.

Moonlight covered by smoke -
volcanoes’, storms at sea,
ash - lumber burns to
remove nature.

A cast of peacefulness over
your home, into your heart -
deep inside each breath
you take. . .

A cast of moonlight
should curl like a lily over fresh
waters and friendly shores,
a cast - endless - a
wave of peacefulness.

Nancy Duci Denofio

CANDY IN THE FOREST

CANDY IN THE FOREST

If you never walked in the forest
after smoking green leaves, or
connected, side by side, friend on
friend, smelling sweet sweat,
soft sweetness of the soil, or rolled
around in high grass, removed
your clothes to swim nude in a
lake, picked dead dandelions for
a friend –

Then you will not dream about it, or pretend to know.

If you never hitch-hiked on a road
where cars seldom traveled, or never
pulled pack your thumb, back to your
fingers, lowered your arm after a
car sped by, but smiled when your
legs tired, smiled when you were
hungry, smiled at nothing but laughed
at everything you heard -

Then, you will not dream about it, or pretend to know.

If you never knew Whitman’s Leaves
of Grass – or focused on what it told
you -

Then, you will not dream about it, or pretend to know.

It wasn’t a piece of candy or a
delicate slice of fudge, or a box in
deeper shades of yellow, with names
of things to come, but a vision, the image of know and still living

Then, you will dream about it, and know.


Nancy Duci Denofio
published in What Brought You Here
by Dystenium page 12-13

In Full View

In Full View

With a wide smile you
knocked on my window -
still – standing on my
porch.

You looked - disturbed.

I turned to my left,
I step to the right -
In full view

In the midday sun
a bit of silver shined
as you lifted your arm -
pointed at your head -
your right hand, your
finger on the trigger -

I startled you?
I suppose -

I never stopped smiling -
as beads of sweat poured
down your face - and
your hand - began to shake

I closed the drapes.

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved

GRAVESITE

GRAVE SITE

approached a village
grave yard resting
near an old train track
over looking
mountains of Vermont...

in fall, marble wraps
an envelope by color -
summer – a robin’s nest
in the old maple...

one robin, beating its'
breasts on a giant limb
must be Mama

watching her child
fly near her grave, near
buckets crying syrup

no roadway in winter -
on top of a crest of
pure white snow - the

grave yard - cement
markers peeking through -
Mama’s voice,
silently yelling...

"Up here, on the hill....
it's cold, and I'm alone."

Nancy Duci Denofio
all rights reserved

DREAMS OF PLATO

DREAMS OF PLATO


She was as sweet as an orange blossom
leaping over newly born daisies.
Her feet wrapped in patent leather shoes
and a face as perfect as a moon, in autumn;
a product of two fine gems at Plato’s, but
you won’t recall Plato’s or a blast as hot as
the sun changed the color of the blossom.

Ignorance on the part of a lazy man, one
she married and never loved; now a poor
widow imperfect burns.

But a small delicate flower is leaping.
She pumps a swing with her strong legs
and runs faster then the boys from her
block. Her eye’s her grandmothers,
knowing everything as she rocked
back and forth.

That’s before the fire, robbed her sight
alone, she sits on a faded pillow.
Alone on her porch and sinking deeper
into earth.

She heard laughter from the playground
I watched as a tear roll onto hollow
cheeks as if a diamond sparkles and
she sees. . .

Her leg’s run, carrying her body to
the playground, where Plato’s once
stood, and leaps onto a slide
and her thighs burn

Nancy Duci Denofio
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