Poems by Samantha Savello

“Invisible Feet”

            By Samantha Savello

The dog does not cry

When she steps on his tail

For he is used to it

And knows by now

That there is no use in whining.

Sometimes the cat

Will rise from the shadows of the barn

And meow quietly,

Distracting her until she leaves the dog alone.

But more often than not,

The dog lies there in the hay

Next to the empty horse stables,

Batting horse flies with his tail

And waiting for the heavy foot

To pin him down again.

“We Are Fine, Thank You”

            By Samantha Savello

We lived in a ravenous existence

Too hungry for our eyeballs to stay straight

For more than a few seconds

“Do you want food?” They would ask

“We have chicken parm, made fresh”

But we looked at the oozing cheese,

The flesh, burnt and breaded, 

And we laughed like half-baked hyenas,

Rubbing our ribs with our spiny paws,

And choosing instead to drink water

And inhale a few breaths of fresh dust.

“What I Wish I Was”

            By Samantha Savello

The rats are back

I’ve seen them

Large and hairy,

Scuttling across the bricks

Of the back alleyway

They are swift

Like tiny field mice

Whose dainty pitter-patter

Across the floorboards

Is more juvenile than it is jarring

But they are not field mice

They are rats

Huge, oversized vermin

The size of small cats 

Greedy for whatever

Delicacies the dumpsters may hold

Pizza crusts, rotting eggplant chunks,

Cheese a few days past the expiration date

The rat does not mind if the food has gone bad

For he is a monster, a scavenger

A vile creatine

And yet he is shameless.

- Samantha Savello is a Latinx poet living in the Boston area. She is a recent graduate from Brown University, where she studied Hispanic literature. She identifies as bisexual and uses the pronouns she/her.

Copyright©2020 by Samantha Savello. All Rights Reserved.