Issue 129

Moods
are painted dark blue on the blue East River.

I lost my lost saints in pieces.

Am I this crumbling
country?

Four young daughters dead.
Marble wall plaque.
The names are blue.

I felt a thrilling moment of relief, amazed that I had been freed of the burden of a child, then crushed by guilt for having felt so.

A pine tree staring you in the face,
A turkey buzzard swirling over the valley
And you looking out and pretending you know
Why the air comes just to push it around

It was our last summer before the loop of that love tore off
broke free like a dog through a screen door

One time when my young son saw the moon in daylight
he named it flatly.

He leads her
through the streets lined with stands of bleary pears
and baby shoes, through the city stunned
with bunkers, some of the 750,000 built in the Hoxha years.

WEARY AND NUMB, Niam Khabbaz trudged through the streets of Rising Sun. Her heart was pounding for no apparent reason as she made her way through the narrow passages she knew so well. She paused briefly when she noticed the police cars and ambulances outside her house, and as soon as she spotted her neighbors…