As if he is holding a sparrow by DS Maolalai

Photograph by Diane Sahms-Guarnieri

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As if he is holding a sparrow

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you would write me these long letters

after you first moved back home

when we had only been together

a month or so

and they’d arrive, pages and yellow pages

looped in tiny hand writing

that spun little circles all along the paper

containing in them these tiny lovely parcels of your mind.

and when we would visit each other

I remember your eyes, big and drunken looking up at me

like something reaching out

and taking my heart in its fingertips.

they were so blue and round and lovely,

as if you were going to start crying

later on, but your mouth then

would be smiling at me.

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and now, almost two years from when it started

I see the photographs of you

with this new guy, and your hand is on his shoulder

and his carefully around your waist

as if he is holding a sparrow

and afraid of crushing the bones.

and you look happy with him.

happier than I remember seeing you

for a long time.

.

it makes me want to knock the radio

onto the floor to see you looking like that.

but you were happy with me too, when it started.

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DS Maolalai recently returned to Ireland after four years away, now spending his days working maintenance dispatch for a bank and his nights looking out the window and wishing he had a view. His first collection, Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden, was published in 2016 by the Encircle Press

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Crows at Dawn by Robert Milby

Photograph by Diane Sahms-Guarnieri

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Crows at Dawn

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The bald man walks briskly; shoulder bag and freshly cleaned suit coat;                                  smart phone; smart boots, thoughts of Manhattan, and a long day.                                                  It must have taken an hour to shave his head; press his Brooks Brothers’ shirt.

Spring has left her adolescence.  Crows converse rapidly;                                                         aggressively beneath the remains of a full moon.                                                                           Robins and Sparrows wander nearby.

The man rules his stride, and with no thoughts of his sleeping wife;                                                  no cars on the avenue to distract him, he does not look at the namesake of the street                                        to determine the crows on Maple Avenue.

Their calls are crucial to the dawn.  This glory at sunrise—a religious invocation,                 celebrating the last cool morning before Summer enters her kitchen.                                                     The bald chap does not look up as he enters his Volkswagen, and shuts the door.

 He speeds up the street— Roses and Honeysuckle chase his dream, while visions of office meetings wander his tired mind, past the Robins, past the Sparrows; beneath the gathering Crows, laughing at him at dawn.

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Robert Milby, of Florida, NY, has been reading his poems, public since March, 1995, and hosts four Hudson Valley poetry readings; including the popular series at Mudd Puddle Café in New Paltz.  He has published several books of poetry, and two cds.  Since October, 2003, Milby and Performance Artist, Carl Welden perform as Theremin Ghosts!  Milby reads original ghost and gothic poems, as Welden accompanies on the Moog Theremin.  Milby is the Poet Laureate of Orange County, NY 2017- 2019.