“Ornate Beast” in SLANT, Fall, 2022, https://slantpoetryjournal.wordpress.com/claire-hamner-matturro/
“White Foods” in SLANT, Spring 2023, https://slantpoetryjournal.wordpress.com/claire-hamner-matturro-2/
“Full Plenty of Youth” in SLANT, Spring, 2023, https://slantpoetryjournal.wordpress.com/claire-hamner-matturro-2/
“Fire and Drought” in The Tiger Moth Issue 8 September 2022, https://www.thetigermothreview.com/blog/fire-and-drought
“Helping My Mother Bathe,” in Kissing Dynamite, Issue 42, June 2022, https://www.kissingdynamitepoetry.com/claire-matturro-helping-my-mother-bathe.html
“The Hymns We Used to Sing,” in Topical Poetry, April 24, 2022, https://topicalpoetry.com/the-hymns-we-used-to-sing/
“The Generous Stranger,” in Topical Poetry, March 27, 2022, https://topicalpoetry.com/the-generous-stranger/
“Checking Out,” in Lascaux Review, August 8, 2022, https://lascauxreview.com/checking-out/
“All the More Reason,” in One Art, February 3, 2022, https://oneartpoetry.com/2022/02/03/all-the-more-reason-by-claire-matturro/
“Bear Bandits,” in New Verse News, March 2022, https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2022/03/bear-bandits.html
“Chess at the End of the World,” in New Verse News, Feb, 2022 https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2022/02/chess-at-end-of-world.html?m=1&fbclid=IwAR16MV84Uz0KX5aUATT8exywJwg_FRZA6Zs4K-zGagZEDMWR40cUy-kpfqM
“Pregnant and Trapped in Mariupol, Ukraine,” in New Verse News, April, https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2022/04/pregnant-and-trapped-in-mariupol-ukraine.html?fbclid=IwAR16b3isvIS32oYokjWxO-BEVgHGjpIZkUau-455la6XEgmJU_ehsukzenE
“Lightly Holding the Wonder,” in The Rising Phoenix, Nov. 2023, https://therisingphoenixreview.com/2023/11/21/lightly-holding-the-wonder-by-claire-hamner-matturro/
—
Trespassing
Seeking the solitude of owls
and the cover of ancient trees
we came to build a house
deep in the thick woods
as if we were royalty
whose desires deserved
more than any other’s needs.
Built small with good intentions,
still the house uprooted
live oak, loblolly, and sweetgums.
Jessamine vines which once curled
their trunks rotted in slash piles
wasting like snags that never hosted
birds or grubs on their resting logs.
Our feet crushed lives we’d meant
to cherish—the tender trilliums
whose petals and bracts splashed
vivid across dark leafmeal and
prairie phlox with nodding purple
blooms easing up sloping loam
like shy children holding hands.
Green lynx spiders who scurried
under curled brown leaves and
clubmosses were not always
fast enough to escape.
Even maligned deer ticks
knocked from fronds of dogfennel
fell prey to our clueless trod.
We pray the woods will one day
reclaim our house. Already tenacious
yellow jessamine crawls up the far wall,
like some winking peeping Tom
looking for an open window, its tendrils
ready to take back the space.