Kate Wells
After receiving a degree in
Anthropology, Kate Wells moved to California to become a raft
guide. Seven professions later, she now teaches high school
English and lives along the South Fork of the American River
where she writes and shares a house with two cats, one dog, two
bearded dragons, two children, one husband and four fish.
Kate is also the author of littlesnake broadside #11. If you’d
like a free copy, send an SASE to Rattlesnake Press.
Kate Wells Poems
Tell All the People
The cicada in my bedroom sends two dream–
splitting calls to start my day.
You’re already up.
Last night’s argument simmers on the stove
but our two children are hungry
so we wait.
You boil water, measure oatmeal,
set out their favorite bowls, raisins, walnuts,
cinnamon, honey.
What if no one could fight
till all children were fed?
Relics
I cleaned the dust off my parents’ photos,
stacked old books and their opinions
in boxes to give away. Black rosary beads.
The cross that hung in the hall—my mother
wove palm leaves through it once a year.
St. Christopher medals, a statue of Mary—
her mantle the only blue in my mother’s room—
I’d slide my fingers across the raised flowers,
reading what I could in cool porcelain.
Mary, I could understand.
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