Lighting a cigarette burns off tension. Inhaling, Exhaling, like prayer it relaxes anonymous Fears, confrontation Dissipates. Fifty cents, leave me alone fifty cents is nothing To calm the angst of living. Blunted emotions are repressed, even hidden. Another drag, the agony of withdrawal Is delayed. Two quarters and okay, a bit more For one smoke, seems a cheap trip to Escape. Hey back off, I’m not bothering you. I have […]
Call (718) 429-2020 the sign said, and I copied on a scrap of paper meaning to save for a poem I might need later in life. But my current wife found it in my pants, and maybe it seemed too good to be true, for a hundred bucks a kit with instructions and entree to the Divorce Hot Line manned till the wee hours when things always seem most dire. […]
My accountant will kill me for this: I cheat on my taxes. He countersigns back-handed not to jeopardize the firm. But what about us? Don’t we count for something– the halt, infirm, the sick-at-heart? My ancestor signed the Declaration, the part that’s never reproduced. I’m a writer myself. I work strictly at home, not to be spotted on the street and called to account. I’ve made ends meet: A son […]
Ellen Stone teaches at Community High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Her poetry collection, The Solid Living World, won the 2013 Michigan Writers Cooperative Press chapbook contest. Ellen’s poems have also appeared in Dunes Review, Melancholy Hyperbole and in the anthology, Uncommon Core, published by Red Beard Press.
I rescue blood roses, so ripe they burst over their thorns like these women heat up the house. Blowsy daughters, sisters — too much inside our skins. Deep in my clavicle I know we are having this kind of summer. Waiting too hard for rain. When it comes, throwing ourselves at it, no umbrellas, all downspouts, loosening staves on the barrels. Reassured by abandon. Gorging on blossoms. Garden, flooded. […]
I am from boys’ black pants, white shirts, girls’ pastels. I am from May processions. I was once chosen to crown ceramic Mary. I once swung a censer, leaving incense trails at Midnight Mass. I am from church filled with faithful singing O Come All Ye. I am from Sisters Mary Catherine, Bridget, Augustine– women covered head to toe, their eyes to chin revealing human skin. I am from fingered […]
We have coffee and eat banana bread at Starbucks. Our meetings are filled with anxiety. I worry that I won’t make it home in time, that my movements will be detected, that the arc of my life will somehow be disrupted. We sit close to each other and I worry that one of my wealthy cousins, one who lives nearby, will see us, will stop, and ask questions. My hand […]
The outstretched hands and uplifted palms Of the alabaster married statues Welcome the girl into the church Beckoning her to see what they’ve got to offer her today On this late afternoon autumn sojourn of her childhood. She’s soothed by the pastel robin egg blues And the vanilla peach hues Sealing their man-made material essence; Colors she’ll later link to Beverly Hills statuary And their intimations of pleasure and […]
She hoped to feel guilt at the attractive young man eyeing her artfully exposed flesh, eyes cast to capture her while casually chatting with his partner. But the curve of her breast was created by pride, a burgeoning of vanity. So rather than drawing the blue polka dot material to cover her lust, she caught his gaze and smiled, one eyebrow slightly raised to challenge his dedication to fidelity. […]
I only watch TV when I’m folding laundry, a product of my Very Busy Life, a product of my knowledge that I’ll die without having spent very many moments living. This is where I make piercing observations about the difference between a stain — something left behind, tomato climbing woven fibers –and something bleached, altered fundamentally and irreversibly, warm flush drained from its well-worn face. This is where I […]
Melancholy Hyperbole 