Two Poems
Matthew Carrascoso
Sealed
He belongs on a shore
or an iceberg with others.
needs a mate to adore.
to meet another seal
With a kiss they could wed
and then make four pups
but he does not think far ahead.
all he thinks is being a seal
Of approval he has no clue.
don’t ask him of romance or
of life either. why would you?
no point in asking a seal
The deal is he gives no damns
about anything besides salmon
and tunas and clams.
tastes so good he could jump up and hit the
Seal in a world that looks just
like it did yesterday and tomorrow.
How does he live in it? He must
keep that a secret. His lips are
Four
Thin tubes of IV slither into the wrist
His earth has run dry, barely dented by spade
She strikes April’s stomach, and tightens her fist
A reclining reaper sharpens the blade
of the patient, since Wednesday, a plant in a bed
his corn has crumbled, the wheat gone to waste.
to hurt four times as much when she hammers her head
with cautious precision, not a moment of haste
keeping hopes high and wondering whether
“Why, o lord,” he prays on his knees, “are we
so hard on the skull that the bitch will never
as the reaper can wait, and has actually
For
tune will conquer this bedridden state.
saken to suffer with no crops or cattle?”
get who started their war full of hate.
eseen their harvests from upon the fourth saddle.
Matthew Carrascoso is a senior from Fanwood, NJ, majoring in Computer Science and planning to minor in Creative Writing, graduating in 2023. Since elementary school, he has always enjoyed reading and writing poetry.
These poems were written in a creative writing course taught by Susan Miller, who selected the pieces for inclusion in WHR.