Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2025
Love Letter Shadormas, poems by Linda Goin.
Love Letter Shadormas
Tell me how
to say I miss you
when you were
never here,
when you fly solo above
me from state to state.
When will you
find a time to be
with me and
my chopsticks,
me and my accordion,
me and my deceits.
I’ll stare high
and smile at you through
vapors, past
torrential
downpours that obscure lines meant
to define our roads.
Daredevil
is one word I’ll use
in that first
love letter
designed to heal your dis-ease,
to feed your desire.
Shallow Charm
Here’s to your sharpened pencil, leaves
you never scribe, to your eyes that remain
ever clear despite vague tableaus.
Here’s to your prune juice, pears, beans
and berries, your patience as you wait
at gates of hope, where seraphs hold these fruits
belonging to the luminous mystery.
Here’s to light that winks from beneath your lids,
the siren calling, calling ships home.
Here’s to your dried-up veins, thin skin, gnarly
nose, your warts, wiry brows, spindly mustache,
to your lips that refuse to let go of mine.
A rose will grow in your space next spring,
a lark will sing your song. Visit me again
next autumn, when my chill will yearn
for your return, when my heart
has had enough of this shallow charm.
Pocket Square Moon
Your gaze never seems to fall
upon my surrender to your red tie,
your blue suit, your hands, hidden
in your trousers, where I know you fiddle
with the last changes you made.
Someone hacked your email today, sent notes
about times you lost your way
to pools swollen with me swimming on edge.
I graze those letters with care,
keep them safe to ask about them later.
When you arrive home, I remove
your tie, loosen your collar, close my eyes,
think about the last moon rise
during Samhain in Vermont.
It appeared as white as your pocket square,
as innocent as wildlife born broken.
© Linda Goin
Linda Goin is an award-winning writer and artist from the United States. Her poetry has been featured in Mojave River Review, Sundress Publications, Verse-Virtual, and Nightingale & Sparrow, among other publications and anthologies. She is the author of two chapbooks, She-Oak and Fearless Morning. Linda’s poetry explores themes of relationships, trauma, healing, and surrealism—often infused with a sharp, unexpected sense of humor.