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Voter Registration, New Kensington , Pennsylvania
I meet a man who tells me he died
in the service. He has veins on his cheeks,
and his eyes don't focus. Left for dead.
Listed dead. Woke up on a cot in heaven,
Found out later it was Belgium .
He fumbles in his blindness
with the radio dial, asks me to find
him a baseball score. He recites the names
of the boys in his unit. Sixty years later,
without a pause. He held a boy, nineteen,
who took a bullet through the larynx,
and sees him slowly choking, if he dreams.
He doesn't see much else these days.
Colored blobs. Hazy shapes. Absence of light.
He doesn't move bad for a dead guy,
he jokes, creeping down the porch steps,
his white eyes on the sky.
He holds the registration card against
his body and runs his bony hands along
its perforated edges. I think he's thinking
something more important than I've ever
said, and then the sun hits our faces
in just the same way.
- Jake Oresick
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After Seeing My Grandfather for the Last Time Before His Death
My brother melted
into the maroon passenger seat of
my 1990 Plymouth Voyager.
His massive form sat upright,
as if mimicking a statue of Ramses
stationed at the rear of his temple
to ward off enemies.
The view in front of me
was of flat fields that in the fall
would be filled with tall,
continuous rows of corn.
Like soldiers marching in battle,
they would be cut down
dozens at a time.
I watched the road and listened
as the van grew louder with age.
I glanced at the mileage,
wondering how much longer
before she would stall out again.
Would it be today?, I wondered,
Or maybe on some colder winter day .
-Eddie Ritter
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Grace
Chewing on my thumbnail,
I stare at the pile of soggy sole
that will save me on Judgment Day.
My mouth waters for the dry
slick of monotonous brine
of my grandmother's Lenten fish fry.
The splattering Wesson
pops like a box of sparklers
fizzling in the frying pan.
My grandmother slides on grease
as she presents the sizzling tray.
A surviving patch of sole
is silent in its slimy yellow pool.
I snatch him up and swallow him whole.
I run my fingers up
and suck the last of scorched sweetness.
I am saving myself.
-Audrey Mao |
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