Poems

Find and share the perfect poems.

The Amenities

Enchantée, says the key in my hand.
When I try to turn it, it turns to sand.

Time is an upgrade, says the front desk.
Reserved for our most valued guests.

Time is an anemone, says the new hire.
Enemy. Amenity. Profanity. Dire.

Whatever you’ve forgotten,
they provide. Loved one,

plot line, pack of minutes?
Glass eyes, false teeth, all sleep is gratis.

How sweet
we look in our hotel linens.

I stared at the tiny xeroxed faces
we wore like blurry jokes
pinned to our lapels.

Outside, the light raked the dry brown foothills
we slid down on flattened cardboard boxes,
decades ago, out of control, fast,

Catherine Barnett

2023

Up late scrolling
for distraction, love, hope,
I discovered skew dice.

In the promotional video
you see only a mathematician’s hands,
like the hands of god,

picking up the dice one at a time,
turning them over and over
before returning them

Catherine Barnett

2022

A recent study found that poems increased
the sale price of a home by close to $9,000.
The years, however, have not been kind to poems.

The Northeast has lost millions of poems,
reducing the canopy. Just a few days ago,
high winds knocked a poem onto a power line

Catherine Barnett

2019