Poetry from the 2022 Issue #50

My Mother in Flickering Light by Daniel Donaghy

I unlock the door to find my mother

            in her usual spot on the couch,

water glass sweating on the coffee table,

            kitchen behind her switching

from dark to light to dark beneath

            flickering fluorescent light. It’s been

doing that since just after my last trip home

            from school a month ago, she says.

We live on a street of rowhouses at the end

            of post-industrial Philadelphia.

The neighbor dads who aren’t drunks

            are tradesman who would have gladly

climbed onto the chair for her as I did

            to twist the tube of a bulb until light

flooded again my father’s empty chair,

            white-paneled walls now tan

from nicotine, the photo cube that still

            holds our grade school

and First Communion photos,

            the washer that drains into the sink,

the shelf of mugs, medicines, and bills,

            the rot holes in the tilted floor,

the back door held shut by a mop handle,

            and glue traps the exterminator

placed that day by the stove and fridge,

            air thick with insecticide and the stink

of mouse shit clumped on the hidden

            side of every drooping ceiling tile

before I step down from the chair.

            She didn’t want to bother anybody,

she says, so she kept the light off,

            cooked in the dark, ate watching TV,

tried to fix it, she says, by jiggling the switch,

            kept her trouble to herself––

as in a few years she would

            her last illness––and waited for me.

Love’s Eyes by Marge Piercy

When we gaze at each other

what do we see? The lover

first bedded forty-six years

ago? The woman in long

white sundress posing as

wedding dress, the man

in hippie costume, bright

Indian shirt? You’re harder,

muscled now. Still talking,

laughing, working as so long

ago, I adore you more and better

than when we chose each other.

Through aches and pains,

storms and death of friends,

beloved pets, through sickness

operations, vision and hearing

weaker by the year, how we

still close together like two

shells of a big sea mollusc

grounded in the sea of love.

Poem for My Newborn Son, Dante by Dante Di Stefano

I will just linger in the marigolds

planted in the period at the end

of a stanza, remember Novembers

when the smell of salt air wafted in through

the window like ash, recall a blue jay

whose song felt like a dirge in the knuckles,

and vow to you, in the language of doves

and asphodel: I’ll never be able

to say enough how many oceans of—

tempests of—love your name contains for me,

how many ways I want to reinvent

the awe in the throatsong of the word, son.

Dante, help me connect the stars skipping

inside the stone of this poem for you.

IN MY GRANDPARENTS’ BASEMENT by Jason Craig Poole

The seven of us stand in a lopsided

circle, each holding the treasures we found

while exploring our grandparents’ basement. 

I’m sure I have the coolest treasure of all:

an old leather-bound book with hand-drawn

maps that looks like a pirate’s atlas.

Stephanie says, “Hey guys, look what I found

in the bassinet!” and she holds up a giant

doll that looks like a real baby in a tea-stained

christening gown. Blonde ringlets of hair

peek out from under its lacy bonnet.

She turns the baby for us to see and

Lindsay says, “Ew, what’s wrong with her face?”

The doll’s eyes, half-open, roll around

in their sockets and its once-peach-toned

face has turned a sickly shade of green.

My sister says, “Maybe if you push on her stomach,

she’ll blow kisses like that doll I got for Christmas.”

The other cousins agree we should give it a try

and they hand the doll to me because, at twelve,

I’m the oldest in the group and should have

the honor and responsibility. And even though

they don’t say it, I know they’re a little afraid.

I lay the baby on her back on the cold tile floor

and everyone squats down and leans in. With two

fingers, I push hard on the doll’s soft belly

in a half-hearted attempt at CPR. And a funky cloud

of sour air puffs from the doll’s pink mouth.

The kids scream, hold their noses and scramble

up the stairs to the safety of the grownups

in the kitchen. And that’s when it hits me: the green

glow of her face is a forest of mold beneath her pale

plastic skin, probably growing for decades after one

of my aunts fed her real milk from a baby doll’s bottle.

I carry her to the faded armchair in the corner beside

the old vanity with the brushes and shell combs.

Then I pick up the leather-bound book of old maps

from floor and I walk up the stairs.

Holy Hour by Joe Weil

On a boulder near the village of Quesang

Tibet, 200, 000 years ago

Two children left their hand

and footprints pressed into

soft limestone

and today, my daughter

found the one dry spot in the sidewalk

to leave her

mark bending down

to press and laugh

The hot spring where those children played

still fills a bathhouse,

My daughter spins giggling in the rain

and giggling, spins

Play being the one holy hour

beyond all subterfuge

Vacation Postcard by Lisa Coll Nicoloau

Rita, our friend from New Zealand,

Took this picture of us high up on the cliffs

Of Santorini.

Behind us is a picturesque white village

And a crystal sea.

We look like newlyweds in love and we are,

Having just gotten married in my husband’s

Homeland of Cyprus, surrounded by thousands

Of family and friends.

We used some of our wedding money to book a trip

To Santorini and escape the family for a week.

On our first full day, we took a tour that began on a bus

That descended such a steep mountain

I was sure my life would end on those cliffs.

When we got to the bottom we were led to a small boat

That took us out onto the cold deep waters.

I imagined we were above Atlantis and was sure

Our lives would end on the sea.

Finally we arrived at a small harbor and waded to land.

Waiting for us were three smelly donkeys, the only way

To get to the top.

Never graceful, I barely managed to climb atop.

My husband helped Rita onto the second.

She was elderly but spry and as we made the ascent

She told me why she was traveling alone,

That her husband had passed before their long

Awaited voyage.

Now, thirty years later, I look at this picture

And the woman in it, so young and surprisingly pretty,

And she is a mystery to me.

Because of Rita, I have this slice of time, this one

Photo of my honeymoon.

I’m grateful to her for this moment

But more for the shadow she cast upon us.

As we began our life together,

That sadness will eventually come,

That all we can do is savor the sweetness while we can.