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| Alissa Sammarco |
I Used to Save Things
The hotel key fob when hotels still had locks,
pencils with the name and city
pressed along the yellow or blue or green wood.
My finger had a callas on the knuckle
from writing letters and notes,
things I wanted to remember,
at least long enough to get home.
The plastic hotel cards tell me nothing.
No room number or name,
no cute slogan to sing in a jingle.
The name of the hotel maybe,
but not the city or state
or even the hotel restaurant menu
linked to a square QR code.
I travel home unable to hold the trip,
even for a moment, unique.
The face of the clerk whose crystal eyes
seemed dull under fluorescents,
The ventless fireplace burning endlessly.
Except I remember missing you
when the door closed, and I stood
staring into the bathroom mirror,
a funny light-trick making my eyes seem to sparkle,
and white towel and washcloth waiting for me.
Abstract
Why did I come to you
in this rabbit hatch kind of way?
Padding soft feet through labyrinths,
tipping my head this way and that,
peaking around corners to see
who might be hiding.
Why did you take me,
embrace me into your bed,
calm the trembling, twitching,
frightful fallacy,
make one body out of
four legs and four arms and two mouths,
touching, then parting, then touching.
Feeling everything in abstract
just for that moment I am here.
Flow
Are you still able to breathe
after holding your breath for so long?
You dip down below the surface
then breach in gulps that look effortless.
Each time you dive seeking treasures
forgotten in the flow of sifting sand,
those nuggets of gold, precious
and so heavy they drowned you.
Near the end, we would talk
and you didn’t remember the ants
burned under a magnifying glass
or the sound the dog made when he snored.
You didn’t remember how I was terrified
thinking a monster was in the house
guarding treasures in the basement,
nuggets now lost in this flow.
Look Through Time
Pick up your garbage.
You left it in the past
for me to deal with
in the endless backrooms
of silicon circuitry
dizzy in unsteady footsteps,
toe-walking without socks
on cold linoleum floors,
under fluorescent lights
while the TV shoots bad guys.
I refuse to eat, but drink deep
this final fantasy.
It’s real to me
as I look in.
Just let me go back home.
Our Father who art in Heaven.
Just let me go back home.
The Conversation
Your words tumbled like rocks
in the current, rapids roaring,
turning until smooth and round and polished,
like your art tumbled
from fingertips dipped in paint
and splattered across canvas.
All the dreams you thought were lost,
after the children were born and the marriage ended,
all of them leaving you in that empty house.
You filled it again, over days
and nights with lovers,
and friends who would be lovers.
Those dreams hung like clouds,
almost never ready to rain,
almost never raining.
And the dreams of handsome dark-haired men,
they came back just when you’d forgotten
how much you wanted them.
Bio:
Alissa Sammarco is a writer and attorney from Cincinnati. She announces the upcoming book, Paper Doll (Main Street Rag 2026). You can pre-order now! https://mainstreetragbookstore.com/product/paper-doll-alissa-sammarco/ Alissa’s poems capture the extraordinary of everyday and will entrap you with every aspect of relationships. In 2025, her chapbook, Moon Landing Day won the International Impact Book Award. Her works include 6 books including Italian Dinner Music (Turning Point 2025), The Waiting Room (Turning Point 2025), Cupcake Day (Turning Point 2024), Moon Landing Day (Finishing Line Press 2024), I See Them Now (Turning Point 2024) and Beyond the Dawn (Turning Point 2023). Look for her poems various online and print journals including Main Street Rag, Sheila-Na-Gig, Black Moon Magazine, Quiet Diamonds, VIA: Voices in Italian Americana, Pine Mountain Sand & Gravel, and elsewhere.
www.AlissaSammarco.com; Instagram @AlissaSammarcoWrites; Facebook Alissa Sammarco – Writer & Poet.
