I reach out into emptiness,
feel an aura of unrest,
hear cries in many tongues,
some worse than others.
And though I’ve crossed the start line,
failed to scale hurdles, between,
it’s not what you think.
I let hope take the relay to the finish line.
She blames herself for the battles;
I blame myself for the war.
A silent night in the desert,
we meet where the four states patch together
At last the summer months gained friction and the calculations dimmed away beneath the long stretch of daylight.
Read MoreIN A CROWDED refugee camp in Bethlehem, Echlas chain-smokes her way through a pack of cigarettes recently purchased by her 9-year-old neighbor. Small for his age, and always smiling, he drops by often to ask whether she needs anything from one of the small shops in the camp.
Read MoreBreak the falsity of self
into its bony fragments
What will you endure, each moment, each morning when
the burden begins again? (Repetition may be the suffering.)
In the August sun
in a window
a vase
without water
Bulging rucksack
clutches sculpted shoulders of
sprouting boy who
wears two faces
American wild unsettled spunk
Croatian aching timid hope
This morning
how many of you wished your covers
were covered with super glue
and they plastered you
to your yellowing mattress
so you wouldn’t have to experience
the dread of getting out of bed
Light rises from a white bird—pigeon
at the crusted edge of a roof
I run my fingers along the coarse green curtains in my bedroom window and look down at the silent form of our next door neighbor as she shuffles in the soft glow of her kitchen light.
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