Poetry By Lisa Romano Licht

Donald Lee Pardue CC



​
Small Robberies

“You’re ugly,”
my best friend decides,

“where you have lots of beauty marks.”
Guilty, I hair-hide

my face, generously sprinkled.
We’re twelve so I believe her.

Tall boy at the pizza place
wispy dark lip, fresh-muscled

guards the take-out window
breathes her in--

already bloomed—high T-shirt bumps
and cheekbones, long lucky hair.

A hostage on the sidelines,
I haven’t learned this game. 

Legs burn, bicycle trails her home.
Back in her room she orders:

“Turn around,”  
so she can change her top.

Cross-legged on the shag, I do. Then steal
a glance in the corner mirror.

When dusk falls summer nights I run the block, 
her house to mine.  

Like mockingbirds, we trade a call
I still feel in my throat. 

Years of dusks descend before I hear 
her echo true--

a warning cry
of future thieves.

​

​

Lisa Romano Licht’s poetry and other work has appeared in Blue Heron Review, The Westchester Review, San Pedro River Review, Steam Ticket, Please See Me, Mom Egg Review and elsewhere, and was selected for The Year’s Best Dog Stories 2021 and Vita Brevis Press’ Nothing Divine Dies, both anthologies. She lives in Rockland County, NY with her husband. Find her on Twitter:@LRLwrites