Poetry
Exploring the relationship between self and nature, and the tension between memory and impermanence.
Pushcart Nominated Poem
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Pushcart Nominated Poem *
Made and Unmade
Walking Past the End
The vultures tilt in a slow gyre overhead,
black commas punctuating
a sentence I don’t yet know the end of.
Their shadows stitch the dirt at my feet,
a clock with no hands, tightening.
I wonder if it’s my name
scratched into their hunger,
or if some other luckless thing
has caught their eye—a deer, a dog,
a stranger who paused too long.
I keep walking, heels grinding dust,
pretending the air isn’t thickening,
that the squawks aren’t a chorus
rehearsing my exit. A stick snaps
underfoot. I tell myself it’s nothing—
just the world, practicing.
©Sam Aureli
First published in Crow & Cross Keys
Photo: Photo by Casey Allen on Unsplash
The Day My Father Ran Barefoot After the Dog
After dinner, my brother and I sit on the patio with our espressos, like always. This is the part of the night where things soften, where regrets spill easy and childhood turns mythic, almost funny. He lights a cigarette. I hate the smoke, but I say nothing. It helps him breathe. He takes a drag and says, You remember that fuckin’ dog? King, or Fang, or something sharp-sounding. A monstrous German shepherd. I don’t even remember what we were doing, but the sun was low, the park still simmering with summer, and then it came—teeth first, snarling like it had a score to settle. We ran. God, we ran. I scrambled up the swing set. You weren’t fast enough. It caught your shorts, ripped the hem, almost took skin. And still, the next day, we went back. That’s who we were. It chased us again, this time to the fence. We screamed, climbed, scraped fingers and knees. Then that sound—raw, terrible—cut through everything. Not fear. Not anger. Something older. Primal. And there he was. Father. Bare-chested. Barefoot. Eyes wild. Cricket bat raised like a weapon or a prayer. Charging down the path like a man with nothing left to lose. We froze. The dog froze. Then it turned and ran. And we collapsed into the grass, stunned, trembling, hearts pounding like drums. Our father was heaving, breathless, bat still raised, like maybe the fight hadn’t ended. My brother laughs now, flicks ash into the tray, says, He looked like a lunatic. I nod, sip the last of the espresso, and don’t say what I’m thinking. That that kind of rescue was rare. That most days, he was the dog.
©Sam Aureli
First published in Unbroken #47
Photo by Fanny Renaud on Unsplash
The Weight of His Chair
Leather cracked, spine-sprung,
still warm with memory.
It tilts, slightly off-balance,
as if even now unsure
how to hold me.
The room spills over—
sermons stacked in leaning towers,
paperclips rusting in jam jars,
receipts from decades ago,
filed by no logic I can decipher.
Drawers bristle with broken pens,
old prescriptions, notes to himself
written in a hand growing looser,
like thoughts slipping their leash.
He always seemed so certain—
a man of answers,
of polished shoes and pointed truths.
But here, the clutter speaks louder:
the chaos he never let show,
the secrets he buried under layers of order.
I sift through it all—
not to bring him back,
but to see if there was ever
anything gentler beneath the storm.
But nothing holds.
His gospel dissolves into post-it notes
faded to blank.
Still, I stay seated.
The chair groans beneath me.
©Sam Aureli
First published in The Good Life Review
Photo by Hazel Aksoy on Unsplash
Why We Keep Going
Because the robin keeps singing
even after the branch
has bent beneath her.
Because a poem
can be a steady hand on the back
when no one else stays.
Because grief does not knock,
and neither do we.
We just arrive
with whatever language we have left.
I write
not to be heard by thousands
but to find the one
standing barefoot in a dim kitchen,
cup cooling in her hand,
reading by the light
of what I almost didn’t say.
Because silence is heavier
than the weight of being misunderstood.
Because sometimes,
a poem is the only place
where truth doesn’t tremble.
You ask, why bother.
I ask, what else is there
that even briefly
makes the heart
recognize itself?
©Sam Aureli
Published in Everscribe Magazine
Photo by Ehud Neuhaus on Unsplash