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Summer 2007
Caroline Albert
Donna Dixon
Shara Faskowitz
Adrian Heathcote
Stephen Mead
Michelle Morgan
Spring 2007
Featured Artist:Jennifer Balkan
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Michael Estabrook
Drinking a Pepsi
Sometimes I listen to the rain
and wonder, like Newton and Socrates
and Goethe must’ve wondered,
about life. For some reason
the rain does that -
flushes philosophical queries
out from the murk and the shadows
into the light.
Someone at work died this week.
I didn’t know him.
I knew of him, knew who he was,
but we never spoke, never even said hello;
not because I didn’t like him,
I didn’t even know him.
But a couple months ago I saw him
sitting in the cafeteria,
alive as rain, drinking a Pepsi.
And now today - he’s dead,
just like that, dead and gone.
Gives you something to think about,
whether you want to or not.
as toes tend to do
It’s just a test that’s all,
a trial, no one said
it would be easy, particularly at the end
to be 83 years old and dying,
with no where to go, no escape,
your body failing,
the instruments beeping, lights flickering,
your wife stroking your forehead and hair
so lovingly, saying, “It will
be all right Joe. I’m here with you,
I won’t leave you, it will be all right.”
Your children, your brother,
looking down at you, helpless.
Damn orderly who keeps bumping
your sore toe, the one
they amputated two weeks ago,
but still seems to be there, lingering
(as toes tend to do), hot, achy, throbbing
(in its own peculiar way),
hanging on just like you.
“Where’d I put my rosary,” I wonder,
“And my Bible, the one my Momma
gave me a lifetime ago.”
It’s just a test that’s all, a trial,
life that is.
I’m a Marketing Communications Manager for a tiny division of a gigantic company, and man, going into an office every day is excruciating. I’ve been writing poetry for so long that Methuselah should be taking notice, but in reality, time is simply doing its thing streaking ahead blithely pulling all of us along for the wild ride whether we like it or not; reminds me, I’ve published 15 poetry chapbooks over the years, the last one just came out about my Dad, “methinks I see my father,” done in cahoots with the talented Glenn Cooper from Australia, and before that was “when Patti would fall asleep,” about my wife. Guess you could say I’m a family man.
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