IN THE DELIVERY ROOM

 

Such a beautiful baby

Oh, that's so sweet

I'd love one though we can't smoke them in here

Is that a defect

Look at all those balloons

I hear there was a lot of blood

My father has those eyes

I hope insurance covers it

Here's to a happy life

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Matt Corey is a long-time ModPo CTA who divides his time between Chicago and Atlanta.

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A map of the sea

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He’s gathering virgin crossword puzzles against 

The storm coming home

Cassandra peers inside sees a gold flamingo flying by 

The shore air warm as the dreaded harbinger

The game still within his grasp it can’t reach out forever

It can barely circumnavigate its own scope 

Cassandra shows him some words she’s described

Spreading red across the horizon 

Submerged and held 

Brutal in an iron grid he’d made.

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Ken Hay

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Cityscape in Winter

 

Drunks sleep in doorways,

pigeon poop drips from above,

hookers in six inch heels

slouch through gray slush,

sirens wail in b-flat under my window.

Winter winds whistle between granite towers.

Elevator doors clank shut,

rattle slowly upwards

to stop between floors.

Trick or treat only as far

as neighbors across the hall.

Ladies in layers

of grit and grime

push shopping carts full of clothes,

bound for nowhere

but pledged

to abandon nothing.

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Margaret Fieland

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