Deborah Bogen: Sisters
I’m the last sister standing — but tonight I mean to lie down, to practice being in the box
Kathleen O’Toole: On Grief, in a time of pandemic
What I’m learning about grief is that
it comes and goes, like the shadow in front of me
on the afternoon sidewalk.
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
Valerie Bacharach: Gratitude Journal
I was sure that I had failed my mother, unable to keep her in her home, as I had once promised.
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: The empty room I loved
I was free, I was twenty. I fell wholly &
forever in love every week. I was hungry for life
Laure-Anne Bosselaar: Arroyo Burro Beach
Look at me, writing circles around what I must face:
The man I love is dead.
Sandy Solomon: Ghazal
A night of ghazals comes to an end to fill with birds.
As the sky blues, their calls braid in New Jersey.
David Fenza: For Liam was Many
For he was so curious about the shapes & pressures
of our American lives, he made each friend
feel like the genius-author of a great story.
Molly Fisk: She Lived to See
ate only bites but
always well: warm boysenberry pie,
bone broth matzoh ball soup
Miriam Levine: Invisible Kisses
And survivors with numbers tattooed on their arms, straight as a
bookkeeper’s sum,
the ink indelibly blue, unlike the blessedly changing ocean.
Daniel Burston: John Prine, Working Class Poet (1947-2020)
John Prine was a national treasure, whose songs about love, loss and aging – many written while he was still a relatively young man! – reflect his working class roots. But even so, they have a universal and timeless relevance.
Chard deNiord: Last Goodbye in the Time of Corona
The darkness arrived without your voice
or touch, my love, and yet I heard
your voice and felt your hand in mine.
Molly Fisk: Elegy (for Leah)
her infinite soprano
and my street drawl voicing words that could
depress a saint
Connie Post: How to Sort the Living from the Dead
Forget all the nonsense
about eyes opened or closed
or breathing
or brain waves
