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What is Left
Poems by
Liz Ciampa-Leuzzi
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Excerpts
The Man Who Became My Husband
The day I fell in love
With the man who became my husband
Was the day that I first saw a grown cat
Female, stray, the shade of dust
But with a white vest and white paws
Hurrying across the yard to his sliding glass door.
Full dishes of cat food and fresh water awaited her outside.
He had clicked the sliding door’s lock
Up and down, locked and unlocked:
His sign that her food was ready.
As I watched, I noticed that
She kept a consistent and proportional distance from him.
She never allowed him to touch her.
She was too skittish and wild for human contact,
But as she ate, she looked up at him between bites.
She had never lived in an ordinary home.
Even so, after she finished
She did not leave right away
But instead, sat nearby,
Stately in the sun.
And I realized that all this man wanted
Was the chance to feed her.
He seemed to expect nothing in return
Except the end to her hunger
And, possibly, to both of their aloneness,
Even if for just those moments.
Dear Reader, Please Note
We write because of pain,
Because something inside needs to get out.
Or, maybe, we want to leave something to be remembered by
After we have gone.
Sometimes, also, we want to leave the world a better place,
To make a difference with our work—
Even though we know that once we write it down,
And offer it up,
It is no longer ours. Instead, it belongs to you.
And you may misconstrue our every word.
Then a generation of you might do the same thing
And where does that leave our original intent?
On its ear! We would roll over in our graves.
So perhaps it is better to write because of the here and now
Not with the hope of future influence,
Or aid to others, or immortality,
But solely for the Self
In order to gain some relief from pain and, even,
An awakened understanding
Yes, something close to a true sense of self.
Memories of Chocolate
First in many memories of chocolate is thinking:
What a silly ad campaign!
Of course they melt in your hand
Especially since you hold them tight
The hand, warm with anticipation
Of delivering the candy to your tongue.
You never drop any of it on the floor.
Then there is good dark chocolate
A mahogany aroma that you could sleep in
Cocoa velvet tassels on a high canopy bed
Made up with rich mink pelts joined together
You in an espresso robe of chocolate kisses
Trimmed in silver foil tuxedo lapels and cuffs.
Even the white “chocolate” is good when mixed
With the milk and dark varieties in a homemade cookie
And yes, I use it in my white chocolate cheesecake recipe
Eaters always ask, what is that, a secret ingredient?
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