Rise Up Review
Small Things
The webs of Walnut Creek are all spun
white. In our new town, I notice each
grocery store glare. Sticky stares
follow Omid down each aisle.
Still my love keeps quiet
hands. Wears kindness like salt
and pepper stubble. I study him
as he hums to houseplants.
It’s been hard for me to learn a love
so gentle. To believe him when he chants
me close. Hushes gorgeous until I fall
asleep. In the morning, he scrambles eggs.
Spatula in hand, he spots the lonely
daddy-longlegs in a quiet corner. The wall weaver
nestled next to light. He says, needing a home
is such a small thing to be forgiven for.
He lets the delicate geometry
stay. I am slow to learn
how to handle a living thing. I study Omid
as he smiles at spiders. I ask him
how? His speech soft as saffron, breath, a net
I lean against. He tells me he’s been called a terrorist
more times than he can count. His answer: save something
smaller. Call each a guest. Leave all doors open.
Just because the world has called something
poison, he says, doesn’t mean we kill it.
—Kelly Grace Thomas
Kelly Grace Thomas is the winner of the 2017 Neil Postman Award for Metaphor from Rattle, a 2018 finalist for the Rita Dove Poetry Award, a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee and a Best of the Net nominee. BoatBurned, her first full-length collection, is forthcoming from YesYes Books in 2019. Kelly’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in: DIAGRAM, Tinderbox, Diode, Nashville Review, Sixth Finch, Muzzle and more. Kelly currently works to bring poetry to underserved youth as the Manager of Education and Pedagogy for Get Lit-Words Ignite. She is also the co-author of Words Ignite: Explore, Write and Perform, Classic and Spoken Word Poetry (Literary Riot). She is currently a reader for Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Kelly is also a screenwriter and novelist. She lives in the Bay Area with her husband. www.kellygracethomas.com
