Jones
—on reading Alex D. at Jones Beach State Park, Field 2
I took your book, Love, to the windswept
beach. Grains of sand hurled
themselves deep into its spine.
Pages fluttered—
feathers and pages,
papery wings inked in fire.
A single cloud slid across
the bluest of skies, darkening
the seawater, casting shadows
on the threadbare quilt.
We held our breath for a moment
until everything sparkled again,
as before. I took your book, Love,
to the beach—pelted by feldspar,
quartz, tiny fragments of shells—
and didn’t we all
take shelter there; traveling monarchs,
herring gulls, ghost crabs;
all of us restless creatures
at the shoreline
wanting in.
Playing Scrabble with Pete Buttigeig
In my dream I worry about the way
he looks out the window. The way he looks
out the window worries me. He is pale
and thinner than he was last month. In my
dream we shuffle our tiles by the fire, draw
vowels from a velvety bag. But why would I
agree to play knowing he can easily
demolish me in seven languages.
Or is it eight? He stands by the window
in his navy-blue parka, looking out,
and I can tell that it’s March by the way
the darkness falls on his face and the gray
piles of snow and the restless sound the wind
makes pressing against the panes. I want
to tell him to rest. My own son walks
across Spain in the way of St. James
and keeps walking. I bought him a navy-
blue parka too, once. Calvin Klein with a
removable hood. The last time he was home
he left it—just the removable hood—behind
on his dresser, but I’m pretty sure that he’ll
come back for it someday.
Susan Barry-Schulz
Susan Barry-Schulz grew up just outside of Buffalo, New York. She is a licensed physical therapist living with a chronic illness and an advocate for mental health awareness and reducing stigma in IBD. Her poetry has appeared in The Wild World, New Verse News, SWWIM, Barrelhouse online, Nightingale & Sparrow, Shooter Literary Magazine, Kissing Dynamite, Bending Genres, Feral, Quartet, and elsewhere.
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