Selected Poetry by Annette Gagliardi

Photo Source: Unsplash

Himself

The man I love sits on the sofa watching

the news with his eyes closed, after mowing

our lawn and the lawns of two neighbors.

He wishes he had time to do more

even though he gets away with a morning

of golf now and then, or manages to catch a baseball

game a few times each season, before or after

days of helping his mom, or providing a leg up

for one or two of our four children, or one of our

neighbors . . . or many friends. He spends every

Tuesday at church with other men, mowing

the grass and weeding the gardens. And he helps

with odd jobs the priest might ask about.

He will rise before dawn to take a friend,

neighbor, or relative to the airport, pick some

one up at midnight – it doesn’t matter. He is your taxi

service – free of charge. He spent last weekend working

on a plumbing project for a friend, of a friend,

of a friend. He’s a helper – a do-gooder. Yet

he’d be the first one to tell you a man has to

be responsible to go it alone and take care

of his own house and home without asking

for help among the masses of family and

friends. You shouldn’t put people out

like that.  He will say.  Apparently putting

people out is for other folks, not Himself.

Fade to Nothing

My former mentors, teachers,

role-models—thinned, white hair and baggy

clothes reveal their senescence;

advancing one-by-one, as I administer

the Eucharist during Mass.

Now, childlike in their potent

vulnerability, their faith, their trust.

Open, baby-bird mouths receive

my offering, “The body of Christ.”

They shuffle back to their pews;       

diminished physically from who

they were - yet still alive.

They are fading slowly - their bodies

shrinking and shriveling to a lack-luster

faintness; dwindling like the last bites of ice cream

in the five-quart size bucket.  The best is gone

and what remains is questionable.

The observation seems to say,

this deterioration is one way                         

we die – the decline, a downhill

diminishing like the fading

daylight of each day – an era ending.

I have to hold my elbows

tightly against  my sides

in order to stifle my tears.

Mandolin Player

How does the Mandolin player stay so well composed?                              

How does she climb the scale so well? How can she be exposed     

to rough and noisy merriment, while still she plays pell-mell?        

Amidst those wise men’s arguments; discordant as a bell—  

their raucous, rowdy sound, so shrill. It fills O’Gara’s Inn.              

She picks a jig and strums the rest. She hears the notes within.                   

No time her smiling fades; no time the music thins.                         

She goes full bore, til’ hands are sore with blisters on her skin.                   

She quits no music here; imbibes the barman’s offered beer.                                   

She strums her husky tune and swills the frothy brew with cheer.               

Well-past the midnight hour; past morning’s dawn and dew            

she fin’ly lays her Mando’ down, picks up the morning’s brew.                  

She stands to stretch and find her feet, then smiles a gleeful grin,   

hands back the cup the barman gave, takes up her Mandolin.                      

She nods and strolls right out the door. The night has been sure-slain.                    

There’ll be no more raucous tunes ‘til evening comes again.   

Annette Gagliardi is a Minnesota writer with roots in the Dakotas. She has published in Canada, Sweden, England and the USA, won numerous awards for her poetry and the PenCraft award for her Historical fiction: Ponderosa Pines: Days of the Deadwood Forest Fire. The newest chapbook, titled: Caffeinated, published through the Island of Wak-Wak, won the Literary Titan Gold Book Award for 2024. See her website: https://Annette-gagliardi.com