Category: Poetry

I waited until the gage was under a quarter tank before I stopped to fill up – dust partially covering the “E” – and I watched the numbers rise until full. Stale coffee and past- sale date cookies are my companions on these back roads With the windows down; cloudy gravel in my rear-view. Nick… Continue reading Under A Quarter

The familiar green bus hissed and puffed its way over to the stop where I had been waiting for the last half hour in the warm morning rain. My clothes, conform to my body’s thirty-something-form, hid nothing from the driver, as I flashed my bus pass, nonchalantly, then took a dry seat near the back… Continue reading The Green Bus

Combines and tractors kick up chaff, dust, headlights ragged streaks across half shorn fields. The twilight smells of sweet grain, dry air. A two lane highway curves through small farm towns full of church steeples, neon bar signs. She can’t imagine going back to any place like her hometown even as the shapes of houses… Continue reading The Apprentice Photographer Recounts This Story

Under the vast oak she croons to three other crones clustered in shade whose edge creeps close each time they settle in their lawn chairs. From this chosen remove they treasure end-of-summer sun. Through wrinkled skin they absorb Karen’s song, a bluesy piece that floats sadly on and on      till it becomes a… Continue reading Karen’s Song

The water in the Gulf of Maine   is deep blue cold coming in   One lighthouse blinks at another   from across the sound   Small white needles   of fishing boats split the surface   leaving a wedge widening behind them Darkness comes early here   slams the world shut cars rush home… Continue reading Maine In Winter