SARAH WHITE

Decameron

Boccaccio hoped his book

would be read by lovely women alone in their beds.

Each of his tales would leap like a cat

onto a lady’s coverlet, then twist this way and that

to invite her caresses on its belly and back.

Like the story on Day 2 of Paganino da Monaco,

a pirate so attractive and sexually active

that the young bride he steals,

 “rescued” by her elderly husband, chooses

to stay with Paganino on his illegal ship. 

Lately, the work of a poet sweet

on me, as I on him, has been waiting

on my nightstand.

Any minute now, a poem may land

on my covers and begin to purr.

In Syria

The prison was so dark

that God couldn’t see

what was happening there,

            couldn’t see the mold

            on the half-cup of meal

            the prisoners got to eat each day,

            couldn’t see Ahmed seated in a chair

            on a platform, a cord around his wasted

neck, couldn’t see the chair

            kicked from under him so he swung

            side to side until a guard pulled him down

            and just before his neck snapped

he whispered “God couldn’t see what

was happening here but soon I will meet

Him and tell him what you did.”
 

Sarah White's most recent book is a memoir, The Poem Has Reasons: a Story of Far Love (Dos Madres, 2022). She lives in a retirement community in Western Massachusetts,

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