Standstill by D. Parker

We’re in the middle of the pandemic,
When people quarantine with what seems
Like infinite amounts of pasta and toilet roll,
Make contingency plans for not leaving their homes

For weeks, maybe months, when strategies are concocted
Behind closed doors, perhaps I too should be thinking
Of toilet roll and pasta, of canned goods and cat food;
When my thoughts should be focused on the art of stockpiling,

A different kind of inventory anchors my mind and I count
Goosebumps, kisses, glances, sharp
Breaths taken and released when we were in unison;
Cups of tea, ideas, drawings, poems, tokens we swapped

Particularly for times like these, when a ten minute drive
Seems impossible and out of reach. As I add another
Item to the online shopping list and steal glances at the date,
The time, the hours seem to have come to a halt

And never has life reached such a standstill.

---

D. Parker spends most of her days surrounded by books both at work and at home. In her free time she reads and occasionally lets words form on paper. She lives with a cat who doesn't read anywhere near as much as he should and who spends most of his free time sleeping.

Comments

Home by Jessa Forest

Home scratches at her shingles with tree branch fingers, pulls the air conditioning unit close to her grimy aluminum siding, and keens an empty song of mourning. We found her wandering the tornado snarled wild three months ago, starved and lonely. She doesn’t know how to take care of herself, you see? We fed her shards of dining room tables, kindling for the fireplace, and cast iron bathtubs clawed feet first. She was slow to recover so we gutted her plumbing, ripped out her nerves, and rewired the electricity. She let the water in every time it rained so we put a new roof on her and let her out for regular walks around the wolf pen. Let her mingle with the vultures, I said, let her feel useful and clean up the dead but no one wanted to listen. We found rot an mold in her corners, infused her insulation with antibiotics, and quarantined her for two weeks while she belched ladderback chairs, sofa cushions, wind chimes, and broken bookcases. She still has her bad days. After feeding time

“Are You So Tired Then, Stranger?” by Ace Boggess

—Dick Allen, “B&B” Wind exhausts with its icy fists. Knives of rain wear me down, & leaves in their helicopter swirls like leaflets dropped from a plane. October depletes me, & November. They’ve too much busyness. They send me spinning, dancing, lonely with the rake, the broom. I surrender, collapsing like an old barn, debris of me piling in a chair with clear view of the television. News is on. It spends me. Talk of politics, also. I’d like to shut up the voices that fatigue. They hum like a B-flat in the pipes. They bicker & scold, condemn. They expend me like carrying groceries up a flight of stairs until I’m too drained to care which side they’re on. --- Ace Boggess is author of six books of poetry, including Escape Envy (Brick Road Poetry Press, 2021), I Have Lost the Art of Dreaming It So , and The Prisoners . His writing has appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Notre Dame Review, Harvard Review, Mid-American Review, and other journals. An ex-c

Paths by O.T. Park

I like walking worn down tracks Where the beat of human feet Has steadily marked the time. Paths where trees eclipse the sky and where dabbled light anoints The knotted and gnarled ground. Long lanes scarred by raised roots Which form illegible inscriptions; Where vegetation creates a nave and the trail itself an endless aisle. A placid place that celebrates Feet moving in communion. --- O.T. Park lives and works in Guildford. He has had poems published in Eye Flash Poetry, The Dawntreader and The Cannon's Mouth.

Dear Reader

Search This Blog