Sandra Kacher comes to writing poetry after years of hearing about the inner lives of hundreds of therapy clients.  She brings the same compassion and sense of irony to her poetry as she got to listen to hundreds of therapy clients. Touched by Mary Oliver and heartened by Billy Collins, Sandra brings a heart for beauty and an ear for music to her writing.  She hopes poetry shares how she is moved by nature, human life, and all the debris that catches her eye.  As an older poet, she is shaped daily by intimations of mortality, and most of her work is touched by loss—past or to come.  Poetry keeps her open, fights off cynicism in a world that leaves her listless these days.

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Dissolving

There goes the brittle need
to sparkle, its sequined cloak
a final glint in the sunset.

Edges blur, mordant wit takes its last bite,
sensitivity clots and scabs–
a relief to shake off scarred feelings
and pride that’s punctured daily.

Grief and relief battle as layered rags–
the costumes I’ve worn
for this production–drop away.

…

Un-feathered now,
shivering in gooseflesh,
I come to the fear of the matter.

Easy enough to release the unloved
but what about bougainvillea
vining up walls of cracked concrete,
their magenta sparks gleaming
in early morning mist?
Baristas who remember my name
when I’m at your most invisible?
How my son-in-law comes up
with a namesake cocktail?

How I break out in curiosity
just when you think I’m forever jaded?

How do I say farewell
to the revelations of this rocky world
and the surprising sweetness of
myself?