Two poems by Linda M. Crate

let me fall in love

autumn’s tongue
is already
licking september,

i am not sorry for it;

the warmth of summer
is often scalding like a
boiling pot on the stove
and it’s not enough to
sweat it wants to crawl so
deep down you want to unravel
your skin and walk around
in your bones—

let the pumpkins and the leaves
rescue me from the oppression
of heat and insects,

let me fall in love with the world again.

to kiss the clouds

between the earth and the moon,
suspended in a gasp of
burning stars;

i make a thousand wishes
for you—

maybe i needed a thousand
and one or perhaps i poured too many
oceans into the sky so the birds
have become fish that have forgotten
what it is to swim,

but at least they have their songs to
give them comfort;

i have this big, heavy emptiness
full of memories and desire and longing;
what am i meant to do with all these
pink sunsets and white roses
if i cannot surrender them to your loving arms?

maybe it’s time to build a ladder
to the moon,
i have known the thrush of silver before
so it will not hurt me;

let me kiss the clouds and perhaps
i can find a sun that is actually mine.

Linda M. Crate (she/her) is a Pennsylvanian writer whose poetry, short stories, articles, and reviews have been published in a myriad of magazines both online and in print. She has twelve published chapbooks the latest being: Searching Stained Glass Windows For An Answer (Alien Buddha Publishing, December 2022).