Poetry by Kristin Kowalski Ferragut

                     Elo Vazquez CC



Second Chances


I want to knit swatches of 
Egyptian cotton, wrap your 
scars in shades of sky; fill the 
furrow of your brow with sheer 
layers of gloss from kisses.
                Over years.
Peace made through surrender, still
loss. Holes may close as well as
fill. Then what space is left? 
                Things unloosed:
dulcet rifts or discordant 
riffs, bedrock. 
If salt water cured ailments
of memory I would weep
over cup, offer it as
though from Lourdes with prayers for
comfort. This is what they mean
                 by second chances;
To put the blood back 
                  in the stone.

​



A Few of My Favorite Lost Things


Hard to recall bits of beauty that scatter,
and hide from the wind made from the rush
to move on. Tough to even know bits of glitter
from light, although I’m not sure it matters.

Wrapped in missing I find too much gone in
folds that double and triple about my shoulders –
a prayer shawl, a shroud, a superhero cape. 
My power is to smile

while I remember:
-the scent sweet of ginger-sweat and nicotine
soaked in a forehead I want lips upon, because 
it’s home and ought to have been enough. 

-a name of staccato syllables rich in consonants that blend 
sexy in print, all the lines and curves dancing side-by-side
-a wink from across a room -landscapes of profiles
-a rich voice that sounds of music, whether in speech or song.

Such things are to die or live for. Or to scatter back 
on the breeze. Let them hide within slivers of tree bark, 
under the shadows of dreams, behind the next man who smiles 
for me, or let them evaporate to the clouds then rain down.





Unbearable Lightness


                                                                                          “Anyone whose goal is 'something higher' must 
                                                                                                                    expect someday to suffer vertigo.”
                                                                                                                                                            Milan Kundera
                                                                                                                   The Unbearable Lightness of Being


Tethered to nothing, we inhale deep enough to ache in hopes
that the weight of air will anchor us. When that fails, for ballast 

we conjure memories of lost teddy bears, chipped teeth, the one
that got away, and what we wanted to be when we grew up.

We cling to the heft of agenda books and plans - fragility
that crumbles easily and drifts off as dust. 

The list of things we believe to hold us breaks our hearts when
they dissolve, like playing house.

There ought be a word for psychosomatic hope. The air
is full of things blown away from us -- receipts of appliances we

wanted to return, trash from the car floor, diplomas never 
hung on walls, romance, hobbies we wanted to be our lives.

We anchor ourselves in burdens, lost causes, anything in shadows
of love, to keep from floating away, hearts and stomachs empty.

​

​
Kristin Kowalski Ferragut has been a featured poet at local readings including Words Out Loud at Glen Echo, Evil Grin in Annapolis, DiVerse Gaithersburg Poetry, and Third Thursday Poetry Reading in Takoma Park. Kristin participates in local poetry and prose writing workshops and open mics, in addition to reading, hiking, teaching, playing guitar, and enjoying time with her children. Her work has appeared in Beltway Quarterly, Nightingale and Sparrow, Bourgeon, and Mojave He[Art] Review among others.