Dawnell Harrison | Randomly Accessed Poetics

Kleptomaniac

Light drops from my side

with a new girl screaming

into the silent, rose-filled air.

She loves my face and

her father’s soft embrace.

The baby is a kleptomaniac.

She has stolen my placenta

and sucks my sagging breasts

like a hungry lion.

She cries like a girl as mad as bats

and steals my hearing and sanity.

My stomach still bulges and

my thighs are as thick as tree stumps –

the baby girl shows me she breathes

softly and has no responsibility.

She is a little God.

City Life

City life is a smattering of hooks –

cars honking, street lights blinking,

the crowds of cars that form

a parking lot of I-5, dogs running

in the streets, sheets of rain

beating down whatever there is

to be beaten down.

Questions without answers,

unsettling to a world of order

and foundation.

Coffee and stress flow

from my fingertips –

not knowing where things end

and begin or if they do at all.

My cats sleeps in solitude,

my only respite for the day.

Dawnell Harrison has been published in over 200 magazines and journals including Mad Swirl, Mobius, Nerve Cowboy, The Journal, Queen’s Quarterly, and Hazmat among many others.

Dawnell has had 5 books of poetry published including Voyager, The Maverick Posse, The Love Death, The Fire Behind My Eyes, and The Color Red Does Not Sleep.