Poetry By JoLee Passerini

Bob P. B.  CC




Grammar Lesson: Indefinite Pronouns

Anything I touch will turn to flesh,
and anyone is someone to be mending.
Anyone is dreaming of another 
red-haired girl, one whose cheeks 
are hollow as the inside of a shell.
Anyone can learn to sleepwalk.
When you wake up, the sofa’s gone 
and you have a wooden swing.
Anything I touch grows legs and walks away.
Anything that no one loves 
gets buried.  I can’t sleep.  I dig holes
in the yard.  My dogs check them out
and grin.  I’ll dig a pit and bury 
the old brown easy chair.  It’ll be 
goddam triumphant – to lose 
something that big in the ground.
Holding a hammer, I mistake
kisses for nails.  What I want
is something I do penance for.  
Anyone can learn to say a prayer.
Anyone can take clothes to a shelter.
It’s easy to give things away.
It’s harder to give up.  Some people
sleepwalk into another’s bed.  What they 
want is something left unsaid.  
How I love the ones who take 
things that are broken.  The sign says: 
Small appliances, working or not.
Not all can be fixed, but here’s to trying.
I ask if anyone needs anything,
but no one answers.  I woke up at home
this morning.  Somebody’s couch 
was in the driveway, gently flaming.

​


JoLee Passerini holds an MFA from the University of Alabama and teaches writing at Eastern Florida State College. Her poems have appeared most recently in Rattle, Bellevue Literary Review, O-Dark-Thirty, DIAGRAM, and Shadowplay.