Poetry
by Hal Sirowitz.
“one of the benefits of the disease –/
you learn new words. You / also learn new meanings for / old words.”
by Abba Belgrave.
“there will be / no burial burn /
the body cancer / cratered toss…”
by Nicholas Yingling.
“You know / drowning is as much a predicament of time / as water.”
by John Kay.
“Blood draws dissolve into Christmas lights, / veins dizzy with the latest medications.”
by Katie Chaple.
“The other man holds the letters /
to his nose, inhaling deeply. /
One letter after another he lifts and smells, / making two piles.”
by Adam Scheffler.
“After today’s rain / all that’s left / of the planets / green and pink / they’d chalked / on the sidewalk…”
by David Lehman.
“In the hospital there was time / to read to dream to act / to read Freud’s dream book on his couch / and how his best thoughts came to him / in the hospital during / World War I for example…”
by Ted Morrissey.
“Your left-behind clothes still occupy closets and / clotheslines in the basement. She refuses to / donate them away, / insisting that family may want / them (implying should want them).”