Wildfire Dreams
Image: “Bird Ascending the Fire” by Barbara Hageman Sarvis. “Wildfire Dreams” was written by Linda Vandlac Smith for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, May 2024, and selected as the Artist’s Choice.
Ghazal—
The wine-dark pain spills over, in my bed alone.
In nighttime stillness is my heart beset alone.
To a Self-Proclaimed Manic Depressive Ex-Stripper Poet, After a Reading
Remember: you are a blank page
no amount of shopping can cure.
One night you go out in tassels
and the next like a nun, but we still
love you. Can’t hold your liquor?
My Father
My father was a whistler and a penny
lobber. He had no use for the lowest
denomination of hard money, so handing
pennies to him for change was followed
by a quick coin toss to the sidewalk.
Lawyer Poets, Poems, Tributes
What Is Your Idle Job?
—question (with typo) in a mass email’s subject line I wait for lunchtime at my desk, spinning like a boy