Leslie McGrath: Baby Hippos, the Rain & Other People’s Pain
There are worse ways to waste time
than watching videos of baby hippos…
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
Sally Bliumis-Dunn: Work
The father sanded the gunwales,the boy coiled the lines.
And I admired them there, each to his task
in the quiet of the long familiar.
Leslie McGrath: Bedding Down
Our annual animal shaped day by dayas the world shifts and shifts again O the plushchestnut coatsoft mouthfor carryingthe newyear in O skinnytail tappingbashfullycirclinginto sleep. Copyright 2018 Leslie McGrath
Leslie McGrath: Bitterness in the Mouth
When did the word for stranger and bitterness in the mouth come to mean a kind of audacity? I’ve seen in some men a distinctly American gall– they glide over … Continue reading
Leslie McGrath: Litany
Each day’s a train bound for Calgary, St. Paul, Santa Fe, its flickering windows a foreign film. The doors will never open. But the tracks will beckon. You’ll lay your … Continue reading
Leslie McGrath: An Insight
Your heart’s just fine
From an etherized twilight
I hear myself disagree, I don’t think so
Leslie McGrath: Her Dementia
I walk the earth and have forgotten
which memory’s mine and which is not
and who was she I used to be.
Leslie McGrath: Surge/Wick/Raze
1. Surge Under the strobes mounted on their camoed Jeeps National Guardsmen seem to wobble as they check my ID before waving me into the dark. This is not my … Continue reading
Leslie McGrath: Late Summer Afternoon with a Friend
There were husk cherries that looked like jack o’ lanterned tomatillos, tomatillos as black as plums, and from the rafters hung dozens of bunched heads of garlic still covered with the dirt they grew in.
Leslie McGrath: Luna Moth
I last saw one decades ago. There were nine or ten that July night moon-green and big as dinner plates some affixed to the doorscreen, others hovering like slow applause … Continue reading
Leslie McGrath: At a Roadside Stand in Salem, CT
I bought a half-peck of Macouns and a pumpkin whoopie pie big as a pumpkin I’d pulled in for a closer look at the crowd in the parking lot— … Continue reading
Leslie McGrath: Mumblety Peg
And when the truth about the emperor’s clothes was revealed
the crowd convulsing with laughter at his flaccid gullibility
Vox Populi 