Alexis Rhone Fancher: Kate’s Pantoum
My best friend shows up two days post mortem.
Her soul not yet departed, she sits on my bed.
The mattress gives with her weight; I feel her shadow.
When I reach for her, she’s gone.
Tony Gloeggler: Larry
Yes, he had already stopped
pirouetting like a clumsy teddy bear every ten steps
or so, stopped reaching down to pull up his socks.
In fact, he hasn’t worn socks in fifteen years.
Video: Naomi Shihab Nye reads her poem Gate A-4
I heard an announcement:
“If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please
come to the gate immediately.”
Tony Gloeggler: October
He’s an ex girlfriend’s son
and I’ve known Jesse
since he was five. I decide
not to tell this woman he’s autistic
thinking she can figure it out
if she listens.
Jianqing Zheng: Moonlight
Always after dinner, Yao, who memorized almost all of Beethoven’s musical pieces, played Moonlight in the living room.
Tony Gloeggler: Down by an Old Mill Where a Big Part of Your Heart Lives
…you and Jesse
have a gift. You can both stop time.
He’s autistic and you love the kid,
who’s now a man.
Margo Berdeshevsky: God Bless the Child That’s Got His Own
He says — you will let go he will let go the branch when he is
Ready I nod, yes, he says, climbing the hill from the sea
Where he has gone to wash distance and salt before it comes
James Wright: A Note Left in Jimmy Leonard’s Shack
Near the dry river’s water-mark we found
Your brother Minnegan,
Flopped like a fish against the muddy ground.
Tony Gloeggler: Goodbye
no one seemed to accept
or understand I love Jesse,
that the way he will never fit
in the world reminds me of me
Lord Byron: Epitaph to a Dog
…all the Virtues of Man
Without his Vices.
Stephen Haven: Iowa City, 1983
I remember best the cartography of each failed kindness…
Michael Simms: Zed
rock the baby in our arms
so mom can sleep in the next room,
hours sliding by like gentle ghosts
Peter Makuck: Out and Back
Probably my tenth trip to the front window in an hour. I’m looking at the yard, cellphone in hand, getting footage of my neighbor’s German Shepherd. He crosses the street, trots up … Continue reading
Video: Battleground
The short film captures the particular discomfort of having to argue for one’s value in a society that should care instead of question. Kwesi, a Black man, powerfully conveys these feelings to his co-director Mark, a white man, in the wake of George Floyd’s death in May, 2020.
