I helped with their coats, Cowboy and two women, set his felt Stetson on the rack, crown down, careful not to flatten the rim, and he smiled. One woman, white Shoulders encased in red satin, held at his elbow. Reservation for Conrad at seven. I seated the three at a table by the fire, Cowboy […]
Poetry 84
Sarah Schweig: Tonight
When a man packs a lamp in newspaper, words rub off on his hands. People build factories to build lamps. They cut mountains open for a handful of gems. Harvested for a misshapen pearl, an oyster’s whole life. Tonight, a man sits at a desk and looks at his hands. Off the gems, lamplight would […]
Matthew Rohrer: Poem for My Thirties
We interrupt this poem to read The Itsy Bitsy Spider five times in a row Sitting in Fraunces Tavern a nervous Joshua with Matthew’s proposal Indiana so nice we went there twice Then an ancestral vision on a silent night snow beating the little building They came to stand around me neither happy nor sad […]
Matthew Rohrer: Poem for Music’s Distractions
I wasn’t paying attention and ate all the leftover pork tenderloin Hours ago I fell asleep in the middle of my family’s weekend Through a crashing surf of sleep the baby is drenched And in my dreams I got down to the work I’d put off Noelle looked at me oddly it really shook me […]
Matthew Rohrer: Poem for Asthma
Hold on while I do a breathing exercise I am just paying attention to myself, or the universe is vast And the universe is imperfect, I stop what I’m doing and look right at it I say “Doc is this thing going to kill me?” He pronounces it “asmer”, a voice calls me from a […]
Prairie Markussen: From Blackstone Ave.
“Heaviness fell into things that had no weight.” –Ovid [column width=”47%” padding=”6%”] We were in Mecca but we didn’t know it yet. We might have said purgatory or straight up hell, these our streets to prowl. We might not have said prowl; that was a high word. We said strut, we said front, we […]