Love (Terza Rima) Poem by Leslie Alexis

I broke my mother’s vase the other day
I broke it when I ran around the room
Was having fun, I only meant to play

And made a helicopter from the broom.
It flew up high above the ceiling fan
And broke the vase that was my grandpa’s tomb

And when it smashed the pot, I feared and ran,
For surely they’d require one more; I thought
An urn'll be mine- I won’t become a man

For though she loved me, though she had big heart,
She warned me many times when I came close;
I fled the fate that would be mine if caught:

My brother said the burn was worst than toasts’.
I hid in bushes that were to be home
And heard the call that made me wish for ghosts.

Their spookiness to her is magma – loam:
The horror turned for she is so much worse.
I walked to her and said, “shalom, shalom”

Desiring peace instead of the stalled hearse
That hid behind the belt’s descending fall
And told of things to come that were adverse;

Tomorrow’s pain; lessons written in scrawl.
I stood confused: within her eyes were tears
As that of lion late on her cubs' squall.

Just then the walls that stood for all these years
Fell down and I, I understood her way
And grew; she then continued unawares
That deep within was joy and not dismay.

Copyright © 2010 Leslie Alexis