We Hear
~ James A. Clark
Every day,
ever-changing:
baby wails,
toddler screeches,
dish shatters,
husband shouts,
wife shrieks,
children whoop,
teenage music,
Pomp and Circumstance,
party laughter,
midnight movie,
Amazing Grace,
ticking clock,
ticking clock,
ticking clock.
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Bread
~ Steve Klepetar
My grandfather tore his bread,
sloshed it around brown gravy,
bent over his plate,
but my grandmother buttered hers
with light, demure dabs,
and If I could find their graves,
I’d pour out red libations, feel
their bodies buried deep in mine.
Portrait
~ Sean Lyon
Flour floats to rest
on the pizza shop owner’s
black orthopedic
boots as he catches spinning dough
with all the gravitas
of receiving
his dead mother’s
fine wedding china
falling from the sky in busted
parachutes, plate after
plate after plate.
While She’s Tending Bar
~ James A. Clark
Bono comes through the speakers
singing about mysterious ways
as she mixes her many potions
with careless liquid grace,
and I think she’s perfect—
until I catch her from the corner
of my eye, sweet-talking some suit,
putting on a phony Southern Belle,
bird-dogging the tip jar,
and then I know for sure.
