Two poems by Dianne Silvestri

One schemes up the raptor, / annoys its neck to straighten / and reach for the aging gymnasium

Demolition

From our isolation rooms
we fasten our eyes each morning
on the drama across the street.
Hard hats invade like beetles.  

One schemes up the raptor,
annoys its neck to straighten
and reach for the aging gymnasium,
spread wide its pincer to bite

another free edge to fracture
the black roof, leaving gnarled
girders like tough spaghetti
stuck in the reptile’s teeth.  

Cement and brick walls crumble
under the champing jaw.  
Suddenly the head tilts,
pins its sideways glance
directly on our faces.

Transfusion

too enduring a swath
       of desolated marrow
ammunition inside
       in rivulets and culverts
tributaries translucent
       too few deft cells
my future or none
       never needed before
tentative rescue
        by miniscule coins

Dianne Silvestri is author of the chapbook Necessary Sentiments. Since derailed by leukemia from her career as physician, she pursues her favorite avocation. Her poems have appeared in Naugatuck River Review, Barrow Street Journal, The Worcester Review, Inscape, Poetry South, Zingara Poetry Review, THEMA, The Main Street Rag, Amerian Journal of Nursing, The Healing Muse, The Examined Life Journal, and elsewhere. She studies and performs with several workshops, leads the Morse Poetry Group, and is Copy-Editor of the journal Dermatitis.