President Cindi Reiss has been a PWC member since 2003 and has served the club as publicity chair, speaker chair, vice president, and president during most of those years. She aided in the seventy-fifth and eighty-sixth anniversaries of the club as a contributor to the PWC children’s book The Wall in 2006 and Phoenix Writers Club: The Play in 2012.
She co-founded Writers Inspiration Group in 2005, a writing prompt group that currently meets by Zoom twice monthly.
Cindi’s writing journey has included writing skits and programs to entertain and educate during her career as a clown and actor; writing articles for newspapers and magazines; and life event poems.
She is now focusing on memoir poetry and flash pieces as she reflects on and explores elements of her life.
Her poems have been published in Paradise Review; Inkwell 2022 Anthology, Roots, Shoots and Blooms; ASPS 2022 Sandcutters; Haiku Expo: Arizona Matsuri; Phoenix Oasis Press, Beyond Boundaries: Tales of Transcendence.
Cindi has lived in Phoenix for forty-eight years but still considers herself a Jersey girl at heart. Her husband, three children, two sons-in-law, four grandchildren, and 120-pound granddog keep her grounded, bringing her insight as she continues her writing journey.
Her poem, “Grandson, 18 Months” was featured in the Goodyear Arts and Culture’s Poetry Illuminated installation of micro poems in 2021. Her words were literally walked all over—the poems, having been written in glow-in-the-dark chalk, lit the night for spectators as they strolled along the poetic pathway of creativity.
Grandson, 18 Months
Your legs run quickly,
tiny hands pick up stones,
throw them toward the street.
I gather your wiggling torso,
limbs, and giggles.
Dirty hands
clutch my arms.
Against my breast
hearts thump in song.
©️Cindi Reiss, 2021
Facade
Blooms of lavender
tumble into one another,
the bleached trellis sags
against the house,
a burden to the modest porch.
Scent sidles into your soul,
sets up camp,
coaxes you to excuse
what lingers on the other side
of the screen door,
its mesh slashed by tears.
Fragrance emanates
in the tiny yard
pebbles pocketed between patches of grass
mashed underneath the Rambler’s tires.
My mother loved lilacs.
©️Cindi Reiss-2022-Roots, Shoots and Blooms-Inkwell
Do You Remember
do you remember
when silk felt expensive?
when rainbows touched the lining of your jacket
on my shoulders?
do you remember when ice cream tasted
like velvet? when chocolate pooled on our
lips when we kissed?
do you remember going to sleep
at sunrise? cigarettes and bacon
clinging to our hair?
I remember seeing you through
tequila-soaked eyes, the salt
on the glass stinging my lips.
I remember your pillow
soaked with sweat, your
cologne sweet but dank.
I remember waking at noon
not hearing your
breath, touching
your skin.
and draping
you in
expensive silk.
© Cindi Reiss
