Poem: Clinging to Baby Teeth by Emily Warzeniak

Clinging to Baby Teeth

 By  Emily Warzeniak
QuailBellMagazine.com

Some say you’re crazed
If you stare at the sun,
But they don’t understand
The shamanic desperation 

Of a warm sunny afternoon
After a long winter.
Damning apocalyptic clouds loom
On horizons meant for peace.
They do not understand the desperation
Of five minutes peace and rest
Before the onslaught
Of whatever more awaits.
They do not understand good days
Because we cling to them,
All those of us who have seen the falling
Of houses of cards,
Seen the mayhem of spilled milk,
Witnessed the chaos of scraped knees
And lost baby teeth.
We are slogging upstream doggedly
For a single shining moment in the eddy,
One gasp to breathe in the photons
Of the sunshine and rest
In silence’s arms
Before it inevitably,
Bursts.