Open Mic
The girl with the guitar has a face as open
and bright as an April full moon until
she starts to sing. The lyrics spill out in words
a decade older than her seventeen years.
Audio
Holding Vigil
My cousin asks if I can describe this moment,
the heaviness of it, like sitting outside
the operating room while someone you love
is in surgery and you’re on those awful plastic chairs
eating flaming Doritos from the vending machine
A River Runs Through It
Not flows. Runs—watery
knees high, arms pumping,
breath steady and sure.
Not the whole river.
That would scare people.
F. Wayne Scott
Forgive us, Lord, for
when a loved one passes, we
ask ourselves: What next?
Years of devotion lead to this
necessary song that catches
every sad note.
Petite Chanson de Démence
My father asks if Genji’s a girl or boy
over and over over family dinner.
It’s not his fault. He doesn’t mean to annoy
Poems Used to Rhyme
Poems used to rhyme.
In time, the couplets were dispensed.
Incensed, today’s poet rebels from rhyming schemes,
It seems. The writer, newly shedding the shackles of quatrains,
Refrains from even a modicum of lilt.