Jean L. Kreiling
Home and Away
My ears ring with the treble roar of eight-
year-olds; one hits the ball, I watch it fly,
a kid runs with my brother’s hungry gait—
but no one’s on this field as I walk by.
I’m three blocks from my house, but also three
states distant, five decades ago. A map
or calendar disproves this, but I see
my brother’s curls escaping from his cap.
Waning Crescent
He stepped onto his ninth-floor balcony
and looked up at the stingy arc of moon—
the city lights mocking its subtlety,
its glow not quite the stuff of Clair de lune.
Less potent than those fuller, brighter spheres,
it nudged no tides onto or from his shore.
More like the yellow sliver that appears
beneath somebody else’s bedroom door,
it lit only an absence, an exclusion—
its slice of paleness coolly intimating
a certain narrowness, a faint allusion
whose limitations proved illuminating.
He saw his range of choices growing small;
soon he would face just one more: leap or fall.
Thirst at Three P.M.
There are so many bars in this town—
one known for wine, one for danger,
three within walking distance.
She pushes the stroller
past Hometown Tavern,
then Paddy’s Pub,
and she’s so
thirsty,
but
the kid
is whining,
warming up for
a tantrum, no doubt;
he won’t nap anymore,
isn’t lulled by squeaky wheels,
might make a spectacular scene
that would slake some tipsy gossip’s thirst.
Jean L. Kreiling is the prize-winning author of three collections of poetry: Shared History (2022), Arts & Letters & Love (2018), and The Truth in Dissonance (2014). An Associate Poetry Editor for Able Muse: A Review of Poetry, Prose & Art, she lives on the coast of Massachusetts.
