Baseball
My mother hated it. Everything
about it: the field, the players,
the ads, the incessant America.
Musicians at the Wedding
All week at the wedding
the musicians keep practicing
over the garage, during the rehearsal,
in the basement at night,
on the back porch while it rains.
Patsy
After the blizzard, my husband drives
out to the cemetery to check on his mother.
He calls it Just Driving Around to See What’s What
and neither of us talk about the winding road
Cut Out
Image: “Dream House, Later” by Susan MacMurdy. “Cut Out” was written by Sandra Nelson for Rattle’s Ekphrastic Challenge, January 2023, and selected as the Editor’s Choice.
Projection
What I took to be a man
cradling a woman in his arms and kissing her
turned out to be the gardener carrying
a pile of leaves he had gathered
One Year Later
It’s easy to look away from war
when your wallet’s empty and sink is full,
when the land and people aren’t yours …