Mountain & Wish You Were Here, by Serena Eve Richardson

Dear Readers,

As you start your week, we know your hearts are heavy with the weight of current events, from military occupations across the globe to attacks on human rights in our own country. We hope in the midst of the terror and uncertainty, you can take a moment for yourself, and heal via art.

This week we're happy to share two poems from Serena Eve Richardson which will make you sigh and smile, even as the world spins madly on.

Happy reading!

The Derailleur Press Team

MOUNTAINS

My parents are mountains, and if I try hard,
I can be a mountain too. I drink Taj Mali,
one of my uncles knows where the good
tea grows, he fed my mother Shakespeare 
back when they were starving

I eat biscuits and gravy, salt and pepper
only or I might spoil myself, you blink and life 
becomes hard. My father loves the blank taste
and hated his mother, says fingers and toes
are the only things you can count on

WISH YOU WERE HERE

Dear,
Have you noticed we don’t 
talk much anymore?
Have you noticed that days
only last a short while,
that children are young for
only a short while, animals
live only a short while?
Love,

Serena Eve Richardson is a New Jersey poet, essayist, and singer/songwriter. Her poetry is most recently published in The Round, Good Works Review, Straight Forward Poetry, Pennsylvania English, and Rubbertop Review. In 2019 she released her debut EP Some Imaginings as Cat Cameo, which features poetry that has been transitioned into song. Serena is a fan of live storytelling and performed at the 2019 Philadelphia Podcast Festival with the podcast RISK! She enjoys motorsports and Siljun Dobup, a samurai sword martial art in which she holds a second-degree black belt. Serena is currently completing her poetry book Ectoplasm and working to reinstate the office of New Jersey Poet Laureate