Dec 10, 2020 | Aging, Commissioned, Grief, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Mom, Winter
She appears in the glass like a watermark and her image in the window tells the score. Her eyes, reflected, look blinkered, tired, sore as she scrapes the dishes clean. Inside: herself. Outside: the dark, and this old face between. It seemed just weeks...
Jul 22, 2020 | Gus Stevens, Quatrains, Rhymed Couplets
Even as we all are hurtling apart, following diverging vectors, there is comfort in the circling. Even our anchoring sun, who hectors the planets, orbits in a greater sky. We all circle and are circled by. We seek the very center that we fly from— the power that both...
Apr 14, 2020 | Bible Story, Gus Stevens, Irregular Rhyme, Quatrains, Seasons, Spring
I believe in the resurrection. With its birdsong and flowery filigree, springtime is a useful simile, but the meaning moves in only one direction. It is a life that was, and then was not: true flesh with dirt beneath the fingernails, an eye color that history has...
Mar 27, 2020 | Gus Stevens, Humor, Irregular Rhyme, Seasons, Spring
Day 1 You tell yourself that you are going to learn French. Instead you make coffee with milk and tell yourself it’s okay because they’ve yet to close the grocery stores; no need to break into the shelf-stable supplies. You tell yourself lies—that...
Dec 1, 2019 | Aging, Daughter, Grief, Gus Stevens, Quatrains
She wakes from her nap with bedhead and pillow creases on her cheek then whispers, “When it’s gark out, Momma coming home?” in toddler speak. I know correcting her lisp can wait for some other afternoon so I brush her hair back and confirm,...
Jul 24, 2019 | Alexandrine, Gus Stevens, Hexameter
I once plucked a beach rock from his watery bed; beautiful, once brushed of sand, he did not complain, but now that he’s home, he just lies there–dull and plain. Somewhere along the dirt path home he must have died. A lifeless grey replaced the impossible...
