Valerie Bacharach: Night, Descending
Night explodes in fractures of shining glass.
Sidewalks hold storefront fragments,
deadly crystals glitter,
almost beautiful with still-red blood.
Sandy Solomon: On a Visit to Friends
I’m drawn to the window where the hummingbirds
come; the shrill sound of wings precedes them;
then they hover at the red sugar water,
feeding before they’re gone.
Sandy Solomon: Abortion Clinic
Pregnant, but unclear about her last period,
she said she thought nothing was wrong for weeks,
but knew she couldn’t afford another, couldn’t
afford the five kids she had now
Sandy Solomon: Pears, Lake, Sun
Pears on a sunlit ledge, flashes of lake,
how the poised world pressed itself
through the floating surface of that day,
how the manifest made its mark.
Sandy Solomon: Jewish Immigrant, Michigan, 1885
He knows what his father would say—Throw it back—
so he flings it away, watches it twirl as it falls,
like a star arcing over the stirring grasses.
Sandy Solomon: Praying Mantis
Brown twig with a scored, russet skirt of wings,
you cling to the side of the garbage can
where the lid fits, and, except for a slight twitch
of your pointed mandible, hold wholly still.
Sandy Solomon: Tidal Basin, Washington, D.C.
Over the branch of a small cherry,
below the white flurry of blossoms,
someone has looped a maroon sash.
Sandy Solomon: In Deepest February
The heavy snow has split the oak out front,
its right branch lodges in a parked car’s roof
and splays across the windshield and the hood.
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.
Sandy Solomon: Lost, Departed, Late
In the Serengeti four elephants rest without heads,
bodies rising like boulders from the plain…
Sandy Solomon: Foundling
You stood, small and mute,
on the stoop where she’d left you
with a tiny, plastic suitcase,
like a bad joke, beside you.
Sandy Solomon: Widow
An amputated leg, they say, tingles,
an ear long deaf still jangles the brain:
the body asserts the integrity of its parts…
Vox Populi: An Interview With Our Editor
On Friday, we caught up with poet, blogger, editor and activist Michael Simms at his kitchen table where he was preparing his Saturday morning post for Vox Populi.
Sandy Solomon: Amédé Ardoin
And now only his voice remains
as it cries through the needle scratch.
Across decades, that voice has entered
our voices: our style, our common despair.
Vox Populi 