October 2024
Bio Note: My poems are collected in my books Signs of Marriage, Mother, One More Thing, and Intimacy with the Wind. I’m an avid cyclist, long-distance swimmer, paddleboarder, nordic skier, hiker, and gardener, whose poem, “Pat Schroeder was our Mother” won the 2023 New England Poetry Club E.E. Cummings Prize.
Wind
Tonight
the rain
thrown down
like the water
from my glass
as I trip
on the step
when I catch
my toe
on the nosing
ejecting
all at once
a thick
puddle
to the landing.
As I sit
the wind
cries
louder
than the rain—
a thousand
moaning
ghosts—
it’s almost
Halloween
and then
November.
I feel
the wind
straining
through
some sieve
of wall.
Mother
is that you
blowing
soothing
my smarting
toes?
Previously appeared in a small booklet for the winners and finalists of the, Robert P. Collen Poetry Competition, Wheeler Memorial Library, 2022
Dear Scent of Being Away
I didn’t realize you were there
living with us every day
until we headed out
an adventure, and on return
the first turn of knob
the sour, oh, the stale, oh,
what is that—the ghosts of
our former life before we traveled
no, no, I discover you, scent,
the flowers, dying in stale water.
Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to say what it is about the poem you like. Writing to the author is what builds the community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -JL