A Poem by Sandy Benitez

The Approaching Rain

 

I drew in the shutters

when I felt the first chill of Fall.

There were rooms in my heart

that had collapsed from an internal quake.

But that was a story for another day.

 

You'd like to think it was because of you

but that is not so.

Mother tends to worry but she will be fine

wrapped in her aubergine shawl

rocking by a fireplace with no wood.

 

Tomorrow I will collect the leaves

that piled up like heartaches

from my withering tree out back

and burn them with the letters

I never sent you,

the stamps I never licked.

 

I can smell the rain approaching,

my eyes becoming cloudier and grey.

 

 

 

Sandy Benitez is the founder and editor of Flutter Press and Poppy Road Review. She has authored a full-length collection of poetry, five chapbooks, and published in two anthologies. Sandy resides in California with her husband and their 2 children.