Kathleen O’Toole: First Street Shiva for RBG
Think of all the prayers rising
today with daughters and granddaughters held up
to see her uplifted catafalque, its red, white and blue
against the white marble
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
