Adam Patric Miller: Labyrinth
in the yellow light of that narrow
carpeted hallway that led to my parents’
bedroom. there was a photo of
my great-grandfather Nestor Dreyfus
whose face escaped into my mother’s face
Sean Sexton: Meditation Upon Dutch Boy General Purpose Paste Flux
See the plastic screw-capped container of
Dutch Boy General Purpose Paste Flux, left
by the man summoned to tear out a wall
of our bathroom closet
Joseph Bathanti: High Mass
Winter Sundays,
when my father was on strike from steel,
he and my mother woke late,
then rose and prepared for high mass at Saints Peter and Paul.
Pablo Otavalo: Scorched Earth, Illinois
the bears never seemed to wander
far, they just milled around town, knocked down
a few garbage cans and waited to be brought back
to their pens
Thomas McGuire: Rust
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. —Matthew 6:19-21 . Rust ruins metal everywhere. Dad, you would’ve fought … Continue reading
Joseph Bathanti: Steady Daylight
Today in Heaven,
my father turned 105.
Finally working steady daylight
Michael Simms: Strange Meadowlark
years later jazz, a free communal experience
embodying love, saved me just as poetry saved me
Lawrence Ferlinghetti: I Genitori Perduti
Souls transmigrated maybe
from Hudson’s shrouded shores
across all the silent years—
Which one’s my maybe mafioso father
Toi Derricotte: Not Forgotten
I love the way the black ants use their dead.
They carry them off like warriors on their steel
backs.
Majid Naficy: Ruthless Gods
I detest the world
Which has given its heart
To ruthless gods
David Kirby: Shorty Boudreaux
He really was short.
He’d get on a box and disappear under the hood
and jump down half an hour later,
grinning and wiping his hands on a rag,
and ask me about school.
Larry Levis: Family Romance
Abstaining clouds that passed, & kept
Their own counsel, we
Were different, we kept our own counsel.
Tony Gloeggler: Fade Away
In 1964, my father and uncle
loaded the U HAUL and we left
Bed Stuy with all the other white
people and moved to Long Island.
Baruch November: A Gift in the Shallows of the Sea
One night, on Riis Beach,
years ago, I suddenly
proposed to your mother
in the moonlight
