Peter Makuck: Seniors
mocking with an ache
that comes with leafdrop, woodsmoke,
and those shots of bourbon that ease
not a thing
Sharon Fagan McDermott: Orchid Room, Phipps Conservatory
Grandma lived to be ninety-three
and wore the fabric of that tale to a soft sheen
with her retelling. Where does the past lie?
Leslie McGrath: The Death of Dogs
In the middle of the night when he thinks
I’m asleep, Bill will weep without sound
shaking the bed like a curse at God
Majid Naficy: I Have Become a Resting Place
And my mother, who at her death
Called out to her sister Ozra,
Has not yet let go of
My own sister’s hand.
Stephen Dobyns: Santiago in Winter
He is gone now, the blind man, tidily dressed
in a suit of dust, with a dusty tie and dark glasses,
who played the clarinet on Paseo Huerfanos,
the paseo of the orphanage…
Joseph Fasano: The Figure
You rise. You turn back to the room and repeat what you know:
The earth is not a home. The night is not an empty bridle…
Peter Makuck: After Work
I’m sorry,she said, but you look
just like my father. He died last month.
She found her cellphone
and showed me a photo that looked
as if I’d taken a selfie.
Roberta Hatcher: By Yellow Lamplight
But what of the happiness they wrought?
Laughter around a table, flavor of onions
and mustard and salt, music to drown the sound
of his weeping. All the gods are fallen.
Luray Gross: If Two People Are Aware of the Rising Moon
When his mind grew empty
and his heartbeat slowed to a vague stutter,
our father no longer walked the fields at night.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Ode to the Schorren
& their skin-thin silt the Scheldt ground down from rocks, slopes & swamps — a rainy-day-gray mud, that satin muck that slips through fingers & escapes toward the insatiable North … Continue reading
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Briar
A friend betrayed me yesterday. I loved him for his rage, hungers & big flat feet he stomped . as if he wanted to leave imprints everywhere he went. I … Continue reading
Edna St. Vincent Millay: Time does not bring relief
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied Who told me time would ease me of my pain! I miss him in the weeping of the rain; I want … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Eulogy
When I was nineteen and the drummer in the show band that backed you, you took me to your bed. I had been speechless in your presence: your honey whiskey … Continue reading
Doug Anderson: Prayer for Paul
The fist that held your heart releases, the hot knife of your shame turns to water, the kernels of blackened corn by which you counted your imagined crimes, are carried … Continue reading
