Author: Wayne L. Miller

Black Plastic Bags

Wayne L. Miller

When my brother
and I emptied
our parents’ house,
we threw out most
of what we found.

My son will keep
2%. But as I work
under bare-bulb
light, I don’t know
which 2%.

Gracie’s Mother

Zorida Mohammed

Gracie’s mother was a “satwantee,”
a woman who was meant to bear seven children.
Her oldest child stuttered so hard
he stopped talking.

Her second child, her first daughter,
was the rag she wiped the floor with,
the daughter who came home
after her husband died
in a mysterious boat accident,
and cared for her mother
until her miserable end.

It is always their first child
that the parents cut their child-rearing teeth on.

Gracie’s mother saved me from a rabid father—
abetted by a bed-ridden mother–
wielding a solloloy belt,
and stringing mind-numbing words
that should not have found themselves next to each other,
words that fragmented sound,
threatening to alter us kids, like pigs!
for misbehaving.

The only sounds that escaped over the hibicus hedge
were water falling on dishes being washed
by long-haired maidens,
Indian songs on their radio,
and the humming of the ruby throats in the red flowers,
the hedge that encircled their yard
and edged the bandan in back,
where it wouldn’t take hold, except
in runty patches,
no matter how many re-plantings.

The old envy I harbored for this family
of such good and obedient children
choked tears out of the memories
standing in front of me.

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The Parallels

Donald Zirilli

I’m crying in your shoebox.
You’re laughing in my kitchen drawer,
beneath the Chinese menus.

Your window and my window
open their curtains on a single scene,
a comet pulsing against a red moon,
its signal falling on our rooftops.
You know what the antennae receive.
I know how much the water towers hold.

When we’re shopping for dinner,
we tend to buy the same cheap wine,
a red called Montepulciano d’Abruzzo.
We’ve been to Montepulciano,
shivering outside of an old stone cathedral,
but the wine hasn’t.

The wine is only telling us
the name of its grapes,
like a flushed penitent, dizzy and proud
in the dark confessional,

and we’re the priests
sitting quietly, taking it all in.
There’s only a whisper between us,
but, facing the same direction,
we see the ghosts of each other
seeing ghosts of ourselves.

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Byron and Shelley A-Rowing

Janet Kolstein

The words and that voice held Shelley hostage
as the sun roamed across the liquid city
to drown blazing in a western canal.

Bridges and basilicas brokered conversation;
the younger poet’s agenda wrangled in the reeds
and into open seas where discourse caught a headwind
and sailed far beyond the shores of the lagoon.
Their slender boat, poled by song,
bobbed and slid over the dead fish stink
of last century’s Casanova
and the doge’s bygone rule.

And elsewhere, in the huddle of conversazione,
Venetian ladies and puttanas alike
might fan an afternoon’s seduction
under the aegis of the great winged griffon.

While wives and lovers simmered in the wings,
Oxford and Cambridge, spirit and matter —
“Julian and Maddalo” —
two wild enchanted minds
spun a literary web of intrigue
that would last far beyond their lifetimes.

Each thought the other mad.

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The Poet’s Road

Mark Fogarty

It’s State Road 111, I think.
It’s a Sunday afternoon, just getting dark.
Everyone’s inside, and even though I like
Being alone, I miss them some.

The road starts out as a doublewide each way,
Then narrows to a single lane each way.
Soon there are no homes, just empty
Commercial buildings, looking as if
They’ve been empty since the Great Recession.
The bank repossessed, damn them,
And the mice come out at every moonrise.

I’m running along the river road
Til there’s a huge hill, hard to negotiate,
Shadowed by silent trees,
And by the time I reach the crest it’s dark,
No nothing anywhere.
No cars even to tailgate and then pass me
In a cranky roar. The river’s been empty
Since Clark’s men rowed up it.

That’s a poet’s joke: Route 111
Is in the eastern part of the country,
Clark Fork River in the west.

I make up songs as the boneyards whistle by:
Two cousins pleased I’m singing about them.
When I see the lights of Rivertown ahead,
I will sing Rivertown’s praises.

On the far side of the hill, there’s the river again.
It cheers me up, though it is dark and getting cold.
Turn right and go ten more miles!
That’s too far to go, and it’s not too far.

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I’m in Love with a Jacaranda Rose

Milton Ehrlich

Pink with a hint
of mauve purple,
a penetrating scent
sweeter than Baclava
when she blooms.

Every morning
many kisses,
one petal at a time.

My flower is fragile
but strong enough
to spook a horse.

A momentary gaze
at her radiant glow.

I dread the day
she will fade.

I practice weeping now.

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Slight Problem

Arthur Russell

The number of stairs between the first floor and the landing has changed. It was ten, now it’s nine.

You wonder who there is to complain to. You actually look over your shoulder. That’s normal. When a stair goes missing between the first floor and the landing, you wonder who is in charge.

No one is in charge. Be happy that you can still get to the second floor, you don’t step off into a void.

If you’re lucky enough to meet a jeune fille, convince her to go home with you, and come upstairs, she won’t notice. The stairs appear the same as always. Creak, railing, paint drips: same. She will look up at you with a smile as you turn to look back at her midflight. Your soft face and petitioning eyes will reassure her. Everything is fine. The nagging thought that a stair is missing will distract you when you get excited during sex.

In the morning, you will count the stairs as you go down to make breakfast. Nine stairs. You will hear the shower come on and take a mental inventory of the towel situation, the toilet situation. Both are fine. She’ll move around the bedroom. You’ll like hearing how your house plays her melodies, like someone new playing the piano at The Village Vanguard.

When she comes down, you will count again. Your last thought before she enters the kitchen with that luminous face and wet hair still not brushed will be: still nine.

After she leaves, you’ll get the shoeboxes. That means looking at all of the photos of your wife and daughter. You’ve practiced passing over that hard place. There’s a photo with your daughter and three girlfriends sitting on the stairs at her eighth birthday; they’re wearing pink hair bands with springy foam ball antennas. As you expected, there will be ten steps, not nine.

You will go into the living room and count again. Nine. You count the stairs in the photo. Ten. You climb the stairs holding the photo like a GPS, trying to figure out which step is missing, but none is. There are just fewer than before.

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