Jim Daniels: My Security Question
The closet in her room
remains as she left it
clothes losing their dark
interest. Ghosts in the dust.
Kristofer Collins: Looking at the Lake
Where are your
wonderful ideas now? All ten thousand
of them, each one a tiny grain you
let loose in this world.
Jason Irwin: Ouija Board
I asked When? And How?
I was thirteen. My cousin, twelve.
It said I would be 41.
The same age my mother was that Christmas.
Elvis was 42 when he died. Jesus, 33.
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Ode to Autumn
this is where I can
still see you
in these gray branches
George Drew: Drumming Armageddon
I, too, have friends dead from drugs,
guys I hung out with on my hometown streets
and in the war memorial park with wood railings
we kept falling off, too stoned to balance on.
Jo McDougall: This Morning
A woman laughs
and my daughter steps out of the radio.
Grief spreads in my throat like strep.
Denise Levertov: Clouds
as if death had lit a pale light
in your flesh, your flesh
was cold to my touch, or not cold
but cool, cooling
George Drew: I Know You’re in Detroit
Aretha, I apologize for having never written a poem
for or about you, not in all the Hit Parades of years
I’ve grooved to you…
Jason Irwin: Cucumbers
“I still can’t bring myself to buy cucumbers. He loved them.” she says, but never mentions the car accident, or how she had blamed me for your drinking again…