Could falling take her breath away.
Could hitting the August ground

be love. Are there stairs
into summer, doors a woman walks through

while still sleeping the sleep
of winter, falling.

How much luck is needed to hurt
without breaking.

I heard someone say the rabbit’s foot
she kissed was stuffed with needles,

that the ground took a little of her shine.
But only from her wrists, her wrists

where witchery pulses like a swinging
lantern farther down the lane from her heart,

which is to say the stronger element
in the periodic table of wisdom.

What knows better than to fall than love,
when it climbs a tree

chasing snowfall and poetry
when a heart shines for love.

I heard someone say a woman is a girl
with dead leaves in her hair.

Orange leaves, and red, like rare-earth
salts that burn up in fireworks.

That burn up in kissed girls.
See how she flushes, a boy’s hand

on the small of her back, where it will ache
someday. Where it will shine.

---

Lenny DellaRocca’s latest collection, Pandemonium, recently won the 2025 Slipstream Chapbook Competition. His latest work can be found in Tupelo Quarterly, Denver Quarterly, I-70 Review, and Blazevox. He has poems forthcoming in Chiron Review and Rawhead. In 2016, DellaRocca founded South Florida Poetry Journal where he served as publisher and editor. In June 2026, he launched 12 Poets with Jeff Santossuosso.