A Poem by Abra Bertman

Smoke

 

When I gave you up I missed your fingers
like unfiltered cigarettes, brown as bourbon, long
as trains headed out of town. I kept seeing them move
 
the way some hammers move. Every day I reeled
my thoughts from the telephone, the cool receiver,
craving the short beige sounds you’d offer
before you pressed end. Air felt blank, just breathing.
 
I’m troubled by your music and the taste
of reverie, the hourly crackle of wild fire. Smoke
drifts west over miles of scorched sand.

 

 

 

Abra Bertman is a poet who lives and works in Amsterdam. Recent poems have appeared in Other Poetry, About Place Journal and the Midwest Literary Magazine. The poem "When the World Comes Home," the product of a long-standing collaboration with jazz pianist Franz VonChossy, appears in the liner notes of the CD of the same name.

A Poem by Shaquana Adams

To Cheating Ex Boyfriends

(inspired by Lucille Clifton)

 

I wish them endless nights of sadness and confusion,

I wish them the swirling internal pain of being cheated on,

I wish them bad headaches and loss of appetite,

I wish them a false hope of getting over it,

I wish them a weep-a-thon on a Monday and the last tissue.

 

Let them believe that they were right so that when they

have daughters, they will know that they were wrong.

 

 

 

Shaquana Adams is a graduate of Francis Marion University. Adams has been writing poetry since she was 12. She enjoys reading, crocheting, and yoga in her spare time.

A Poem by J.K. Durick

Moving Day

 

The movers will be here by eight

All the boxes are packed and piled

The furniture marked and labeled

Some go along, some into storage.

 

Now we walk through once more

Bedrooms, living room, and study

As if we might miss something

As if we had more to add to all this.

 

We have become these checklists

Inventories we can easily check off

This measure and weight of years

All that is left, worth bringing along.

 

There are times when things we have

Become more than possessions or symbols

They can speak to us, make claims on us

Become family pets, become our children.

 

We can call this, label it what we want

An end to one chapter and then the next

A door closing and a new one opening

A stage, a phase, just another passage.

 

We’ll leave behind the sounds we made

Our voices, the things we once said

The stories we told and lived through

Our familiar legends, our mythology.

 

And, we’ll leave behind all our ghosts

The ones that shadowed us, follow us

Even now through these empty rooms

Begging to go along or for us to stay.

 

The movers, we know, will be here soon

A truck on the lawn, a ramp up to the door

Emptying our house, rescuing what they can

As we look on and begin to understand.

 

 

 

J. K. Durick is a writing teacher at the Community College of Vermont and an online writing tutor. His recent poems have appeared in Northern New England Review, Napalm and Novocaine, Third Wednesday, and Common Ground Review.