Sample Poems by Carol Westberg

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Bitter House

In my fear I'll end up bitter as chicory and alone,
   alone, wind whipping long grasses in the dunes.
With my fear I'll end up like the husband I left
   in the wake of my faithlessness, both of us wandering
a wilderness of concrete streets, no one to go home to,
   no one to talk to in the swaddling dark.

Past my fear I'll end up bitter as burdock root
   like a child beaten with her father's studded belt,
grown scarred and angry, leaving home afraid of no ghost
   more than her father, living alone.
I'm not alone in my fear I'll end up like my ex,
   who fears his next wife will leave him, and she does.

I've grown wary of acrid greens. I brew bitter nail tea,
   serve kiwi and pepitas as antidotes
to soothe my two grown daughters, thin as reeds
   and not alone in their fear they'll end up
on some windswept coast, scudding along like sea foam
   left quivering on damp sand.

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Screened-in Porch

From her small rocker, white wicker,
   a round-faced child watches the drive.
Her grandfather can't coax her inside,
   though the sun has dropped below the oaks
surrounding the old farmhouse. Does she listen
   for the owl at the top of the corncrib?
Does she fear her mother won't return?
   The child does not complain.
She does not push back the blonde hair
   that strays near her eyes.
She sits still, clutching her brown bear
   as night's wings enfold the electric yard.

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Autodidact

Deaf to my words, my daughter plunges
   into the surf and under--gasps and rises in time
to glide on elusive as fog. I can't tell her anything
   she doesn't grasp on her own. Whatever she heard

under the surface of my words--the push-pull
   of I love you--she tunes to some inner drumbeat at sea,
on land. I can't tell her anything in my mother's tongue.
   To her it's Icelandic, undeciphered runes.

She spins around, trips, blacks an eye, fractures
   an orbital bone. Gashes stitched, she wears her scars
like beauty marks, fading daily, as something unnamed
   surfs in with the next red tide.

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Truro Harbor

Sunset streaks glowering clouds, backdrop
   to a heron stretched full neck length in the marsh.
Two gulls squabble in the air--one crashes a shell open
   on asphalt and devours his prey unfazed
by a gaggle of young girls snapping selfies against
   the scarlet horizon, capturing fragments of moments
they may or may not inhabit. Under this shift
   of sky, earth, and tide, they're all fired up to more
than survive, whatever swims their way under waves
   falling over themselves in silver cascades.

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Black Sheep, White Sheep, Variegated

My daughter thinks we think she disgraces
   the family line, stands out
with her bronze striped hair and vagrant ways.
   Who knows when she'll turn up
next in this river valley, once home? I say love,
   which doesn't mean in the flick
of a lash, we won't go eye to eye, hoof to hoof,
   ready to prove who's in charge.
In our ancestors' days, white wool was prized
   for taking on dye. Now artisans mix blacks
and grays, and our roaming sheep
   graces Spain with ever-changing shades.