Poetry – PLEASE SEE ME

Deaf & Dumb—Paul Hostovsky

Poetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Deaf and Dumb by Paul Hostovsky Deaf and Dumb The Deaf man in the waiting room asks me how long I’ve been working as an interpreter. I tell him many years. “Awesome,” he says. We sit there chatting, waiting for the doctor to come. He tells me a little about himself. His parents and grandparents are Deaf. His siblings are Deaf. His two young children are fourth generation Deaf. The hereditary master status of a kind ...

Because of the Wolf—Kendra Leonard

Poetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Because of the Wolf by Kendra Leonard Because of the Wolf I. when the diagnosis comes it fits it clings it feels slack like sheets flirting on a clothesline in a breeze— now bedding, now ghosts— will I die in strawberry time or live to see leaves on bricks or ice in the windows? II. The wolf has eaten the beach. It’s snapped up the sandpipers, running on their fast little legs. It’s taken the bright afternoon in the water twisting the sailboats around. Sunburn on ...

Two Poems—Kasha Martin Gauthier

Poetry Issue #9: Open Call November 19th, 2021 November 19th, 2021 Two Poems by Kasha Martin Gauthier A Poet Homeschools, Week 2: Biology With each footfall, blood courses to your brain. Can you feel it? * Pinch the nerve to make it grow. Your grandfather pinched springtime buds from the coreopsis— thought he was deadheading them. Try not to confuse living with dying. * The doctors don’t know how he’ll react to the morphine, or the strength it took to ask for it. They don’t know how he still knows our ...

Files Pending—Victoria Crawford

Poetry Issue #3: Pain Continued December 31st, 2019 December 31st, 2019 Files Pending by Victoria Crawford Files Pending “In” and “Out” files crowd my desk, my life, but the one marked “Pending” with abandon grows tall, fat, deep; my energy and worry expending until the warning light abruptly flares bright to halt the ongoing intending of all my busy-ness with immediacy; I sit outside a medical door pretending a bravery that I lack, a smile in need of mending; old man’s problem, yes or no biopsy, unguessed now ...