Loretta Randall Sharp

For Linda

If only there were daisies here in tin cans. 
These flowers are too nice: ivory-tongued anthurium, 
gladiola mouths holding their long, red O’s 
while Sister Smith whispers, “Aren’t the roses 

Stones; The Salutation; The Problem; Grandmother, Grandmother, Grandmother; Bishop

The Slow Way Home

She leaves the women in her husband’s house 
and makes a slow way home 
to her own mother, to friends singing 
as they bring sweet butter 
for the first month, molasses 

Going Home

“Walk,” scold your doctors, but you snort 
that it will take a cold day in hell 
to make you shuffle from room to room 
like some old man. So here I am,