By Linda K. Miller
each day you named the bricks
carried from childhood
there was Daddy brick
transparent, barely weighted
gone before you were 2
Mommy brick was beautiful
in a way no one could see but you
always there when needed
til a drunk driver lost control
a series of bricks followed
as you tumbled from nest to nest
no love matching hers
no family close enough
the gang understood
safe within their bricked-up world
you built layers of meaning
secret places lined with comfort
and then I intruded, trying to
pull you out into another world
a lawful world, quieter
but for each brick I tapped
you had an answer
every option I offered
made you laugh
behind every brick
was another wall
built of experience
it circled you so completely
you were no longer visible
high in your tower, no way out
if only you had a secret name
that I could call out so you
could let down your hair
and receive the world
Linda (Stormyfalls) lives in a world where ERA is the 28th amendment to the Constitution, Black Lives Matter, democracy thrives, climate change is taken seriously, and walls are built only to decorate not divide. Linda has two books of poetry. Her first was called Coming to be. Her second is available on Amazon: Poems to Amuse, Bemuse, and Entertain. She also has had poems published in books (A Vision, A Verse Volume 1; All-Time Favorite Poetry Book; The Poets Choice; and On Earth as it is in Poetry, 2018 Anthology) and magazines (Orchards Literary Journal, The Spoon River Quarterly, New Earth Review, Bardic Echoes, and The RTL Proxy). This year three of her poems appeared in Pandemic Evolution Days 1-100 with Matthew Wolfe.
