HOW TO BUILD A POEM

1. Cup a word in the palm of your hand. Use a paint
brush to slap glue on half sheets of paper.

2. Throw words at a wall.

3. Watch them slide, collide and peel from the wall and land
on the ground with a squishy sound.

4. Place a writing utensils tip at the end of a sentence. Wait
for words to dry.

5. Start over.

-sonja lynn mata



Edit: This piece has also been published here.

THIS MORNING

While fixing my bed
I found one of your skunk hairs, on
my side under a pillow.

I sat there on the edge of the bed softly smiling—
the smallest parts of you. I sat there
holding the strand up to the open window
and it disappeared, because my curtains
are silky white.

Its ends floated
between my thumb and index finger as if
it were waving to me—gently gliding just like
the ends of your hair would be
when they drifted over my cheeks, nose and forehead.

But this bed hasn’t seen you on its pillows
for a year now—today—this morning.

-sonja lynn mata

KNEES.

I found my father
sitting on the ground with his
back against the couch and

his hands in his lap. A curved back
from all those years of roofing
left him slightly forward.

I pressed a hand on the curve of his back
and lowered myself next to him.
I stretched my legs forward like my fathers.

He touched me on my knee with his calloused hand
and patted it twice-- he returned his hand
to his lap.

I went to touch his knee and felt that it dented
inward.

And it was a Thanksgiving Day accident
that defeated my father, but empowered
my sisters and mother.

I couldn’t help but think that
a man of 50 or so had skinner legs
than that of a girl who just turned 20.

I returned my hand to my lap.

-sonja lynn mata