Francis DiClemente

I extend a hand to touch an angel trapped in marble.
Its face is cool and damp, like the earth beneath the slab.
I pose a question to my deceased father,
Knowing the answer will elude me.
...

My first kiss did not come when I needed it most.
In adolescence, when other boys were rounding the bases,
I was left to wonder what it might be like one day,
To actually kiss a girl on the lips,
...

A great sigh emitted,
arising and then dissipating,
but remaining forever unheard,
the echo of a soul reverberating,
...

Friday nights in central New York,
crumpling leaves of bursting gold
and breathing in the October cold
as a pigskin spirals tight
...

Time is an entity unconcerned
With our intentions or aspirations.
It marches on unimpeded,
Multiplying seconds to minutes
...

Feathers replace leaves
In the naked trees
Looming above Genesee Street,
As flocks of crows arrive to
...

A courtship of contempt,
filled with swirling fury and churning angst,
not halted by the hands of God.
Zealous rituals express unwavering faith,
...

I dream of words
I strive to recapture
When I awaken in the morning.
I dream of stories with endings unknown,
...

The most adorable pregnant bridesmaid ever
Waddles down the church's center aisle,
Unable to hide her protruding belly.
And with her feet swollen,
...

A vanilla ice cream cone
covered with sprinkles of dirt,
a handful tossed by small grimy hands
across a chain-link fence.
...

Sprawled out on my mother's bed,
I hear chunks of ice falling from the roof,
and a city snowplow rushing past our house.
...