I took the last
dusty piece of china
out of the barrel.
It was your gravy boat,
with a hard, brown
drop of gravy still
on the porcelain lip.
I grieved for you then
as I never had before.
From Collected Poems by Jane Kenyon. Copyright © 2007 by Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, LLC, on behalf of Graywolf Press.
as you round the bend
keep the steel and mouse-skinned
rabbit front left center
and the track and the crowd
and its cries are a blurred ovation
as you stumble and recover
and then fully fall even if
only onto the rough gravel
of your inside mind or outside
in what is called the real world
as how many drunken grandfathers
holding little girls’ hands
and broken peanut shells go
swirling by why are you racing
what are you racing from
from what fixed arm does this
moth-eaten rabbit run
captive is different than stupid
near dead is different than dead
they call it a decoy but we know
a mirror when we see ourselves
lurch and dive for one
Copyright © 2015 Lisa Olstein. Originally published in the Winter 2015 issue of Prairie Schooner. Used with permission of Prairie Schooner.
I saw a star slide down the sky, Blinding the north as it went by, Too burning and too quick to hold, Too lovely to be bought or sold, Good only to make wishes on And then forever to be gone.