tiffany melanson |
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Tiffany Steward Melanson is a native Floridian and longtime resident of Jacksonville, Florida. A former high school and middle school English teacher, she currently works in advertising and marketing as an Account Manager and Copywriter because, well, it pays the bills. In addition to sustaining a successful 10 year marriage and raising two small children, she is considering a return to college to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing.
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Seventeen, glistening,
she follows the sea
as a calling. Her promises
bright yellow,
silver lining.
This place brings
simplest mornings,
feet scraped smooth as pebbles
air stinking of sticky skin, crabs
paprika sharpened,
stripping paint,
debris,
children scaling fences for
her briny drink.
It is so
rich.
So many storms,
her ship is
warm as dead wood,
set adrift
by the tides of men.
Glistening,
she follows the sea.
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(For Peggy)
Through intermittent rain
and native brush,
we make a cindered path to her door.
Beneath the salted halo of hair,
thick ebony frames, she is
this poet’s apparition.
Instructed,
I toss shrimp shells
beneath banana trees,
her voice hanging
sharp as a shirt on the hook
outside her swinging screen door.
Long isolation,
in this Florida scrub,
leaves her barely anchored
to the sanded floor.
She waits for burning,
the lightening brush fires, their scent
hanging in the air, thick as skin.
When the time comes she requests
to lie beneath a metal Peacock,
her books, divided between her boys and
your girls.
The rest,
leave burning. |
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