January 2025
Bio Note: I teach workshops on Villanelle, Sonnet, Meter, Poetry vs. Trauma, etc., at The Writer’s Center (writer.org) and privately, currently via Zoom. Author of Humor Me (2006) and chapbooks including Genetic Revisionism (2019), I am also a health/science writer, visual artist, composer of tonal songs and chamber music, and an advisory editor of New Verse Review. My 2022 article on setting poems to music is online at https://straightlabyrinth.info/conference.html.
Human Error
“I understand mine got an extra meal!”
was what I said, with a concocted smile,
to the nurse sitting between bassinets
holding a bottle to a fussy newborn—
maybe the one whose mother had been wakened
some hours before, to feed a child she then
discovered was not hers but mine. The nurse,
looked up, startled by my fake cheerfulness,
and blurted, “Yes—sorry—it was my fault—
I should have checked the wristbands one more time.”
Welcome, welcome, to our world of errors.
Her eyes began to show remorse. But was it
for what she’d done to break my trust, or only
for being candid now? (What will HR do?)
I took a breath, walked over to admire
my own infant. For me the tipoff had been
getting a full night’s sleep—nearly unheard of
after a 3 a.m. delivery.
But we’d never have known for sure, except
the other mother visited my room
to tell my family quietly what happened.
Welcome, welcome, to our world of errors.
Thanks to her honesty, and even more
her willingness to test for HIV
(since hospitals did not require tests
for other patients’ sake), eventually
I could rest. Yet what sort of welcome is this,
for any child? Soon after, CDC
announced the virus could be spread by milk.
Of course I’d doubted claims that it could not.
What did I not doubt then? An error’s weight
can crush the victim and the perpetrator.
Welcome, welcome, to our world of errors.
Some years later I moved to a new building
where one neighbor looked eerily familiar.
Her words were always rude; her loud TV
was never off. What was she blotting out?
Welcome, welcome.
A Glitch
Most days the inner landscape can redeem
the outer one, but yesterday a seam
tore open to reveal a patch of pain.
Soon remedied, curtain sewn up again,
my peace of mind returned disguised as weather.
Lush trees surround a lake. Clouds float and feather
above, and an imaginative breeze
dispels mid-August doldrums soon to ease
into September. There will be enough
surrounding wind to percolate and fluff
apart those clouds, ripple the water’s face,
unleaf each foliated branch, unlace
the moorings of canoes, scatter their oars
over the surface each new day restores.
Sidetrack
En route from Elsewhere to another Elsewhere
she noticed something blazing. He did too,
and whether it was wolfbane or a bellflower
was moot, for they were only passing through.
They grazed. Since nonchalance was a proviso,
she feigned it, but her masquerade was doomed,
as Elsewhere nourished both his eye and ego.
Soon Somewhere became Nowhere. Nothing bloomed
and no birds sang in the unruly garden
these two had briefly planted near a track.
Love watched and waited for their hearts to harden,
then stole away. How did they wander back?
En route to other Elsewheres through this field,
Detour learned to detour, Yield learned to yield.
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