SACRED HEART by Rosario Romero |
|
A WINTER MORNING, RAINS COUNTY, TEXAS
by James Lee Jobe The tarp we put over the woodpile whispered tales of the walls of Troy. We were young and we didn't listen. Our own walls were silent, but warm. The tractor contained a crispness that one expects to find in Marine sergeants and apples; the purring engine had the feel of clean linen and friendship. The work we did rewarded us for our youth. It felt immortal to throw hay from the loft down to the cows below. We were timeless! The sharp wind on our young faces! Later, we walked back together, joking, to eat the simple noon meal. But something of the morning went with us, into the house, in our hands, in our skin. |
YELLOW SHOES by Lynn Crounse |
|
THE 40s
by Paul Smith The 40s are a puzzle If you're talking years The 40s were a grim decade of war Gray battleships sunk in the even grayer North Atlantic Grim gray men shot at each other from trenches in thick gray mud Men in gray suits cheered cheerlessly at ballgames Filmed in black & white And gray But there were a few other colors Red If you're talking age The 40s seen from below Look like that time when The beige yoke of adulthood Is thrust on your shoulders And life is spent quarreling over nothing And making up already knowing it is useless If it is temperature that's on your mind The 40s are a purgatory of not Quite winter And certainly not summer You shiver in the 40s because you brought A windbreaker or something light And there is a gale in your face But if you look at the 40s from above As they recede from view They get better Especially the war years Especially the day that man came home Who wasn't gray When you played with a red tin locomotive on a bare floor And when your mother opened the door You knew it was him Though it was the first time you met And when he picked you up and held you And you felt the cold fortyish sting of his cheeks You felt the same thing you feel now That there is no gray anywhere |
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6
home | Table of Contents | archive