LINDA BARRETT - POEMS

Linda Barrett came into this world a reader and a writer. She has lived in Abington, Pa. a suburb of Philadelphia for 54 years. As a prolific poet and writer, her work is featured in Poem Hunter, New Directions magazine The Compass and she's won Montgomery County Community College's writer's club contest in five years running.

​Waiting for Spring

                                            Since November,
                                            I sat here in the park,
                                            My black metal form
                                            Open for the warmth
                                            Of human bodies
                                            To cheer me up.
                                            In the winter months,
                                             I sat buried under snow,
                                             Wondering if I died,
                                                  Forgotten to the world
                                             A few birds singing in
                                             The naked branches
                                             Convinced me I still lived.
                                             The sun reached out
                                              Melted off my dirty white
                                              Shroud and exposed me
                                              To the new year’s approaching
                                               Spring.
                                                 Now,
                                                   And I await the warmth
                                                  Of human bodies
                                                  To embrace me once more.
                                               
 

​Born on Wheels

​You always lived on wheels:  
a newborn infant
perched in a car seat
beside your mother
when she drove
her 1973 Green Impala
The toy Knight Rider car
was your first one
It cursed at you
from its imaginary dashboard
You hummed your
open road song
while holding onto
the sides of the red wheelbarrow
as I bumped you in it
over the stones in
our backyard’s stone walkway
Out in Chester County,
you roller bladed
and skate boarded
into adolescence
Every Spring Break,
You traveled in your
grandparent’s station wagon
down to Florida
One Winter,
you drove to Colorado
by van
to snow board the mountains
Other guys chose college
you took your mechanic
grandfather’s cue
studied up in Boston
learned to fix cars
inside and out
then put them
back together again
You inherited the
Green 1973 Impala
with its torn off
vinyl top
let it go to rust
and to the junkyard
then bought a red 1968
Ford pick-up
Your mother bought
you a motorcycle
so you could scream
down the Turnpike
With your Independence Day spirit
Nothing out on the road
Can stop you
As if you were born
On wheels 

​Queenie Sleeps

She rules the house,
the mixed breed
from the ASPCA.
She closes her black lined German Shepherd eyes
exotic as an Ancient Egyptian queen.
 winces at the pain in her head.
Old Age lumps and bumps all over her body.
Including the one
which gives her so much pain.
She doesn’t feel like running today.
Sleeping’s much better for her.
 Resting her Golden Retriever lop ear
against the sectional couch’s square cushion,
 she turns her head away from the rest of the living room.
“It feels so good to sleep,” she thinks.
I like sleep because
it gives me so much time to follow
Daddy all night around the house.
Mommy would find her pee pee in the middle of the floor
and wipe it up while cursing her.
Daddy hollers at her but
she stares up at him because
she doesn’t understand what he yelled at her.
He lets her sleep on the soft, high couch
like the leather armchair in Daddy and Mommy’s bed.
Mommy brushes and brushes away
Queenie’s hair from the couch.
What does she know about why
Queenie likes the couch?
It feels good sleeping on it.
 
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