Joanne Lowery and Marie Stern

Muse Weeping
Joanne Lowery

What she provokes could flood Babylon
or rot the foundations of Alexandria.
Here in America, suburbs stay high and dry.
Our poets walk city streets inspired
by soot and taxi horns, the staccato
of fast walkers passing them by.
Anyone waiting at a crosswalk
needs a handkerchief for staunching.
She looks up, remembers the 41st floor
where she pushed a lover out the window.
For the seconds it took him to land
she felt his fear and weightlessness.
Her tears lubricate the description
of that head-over-heels plunge.
On the sidewalk is a puddle of her undoing.


The Dying Sounds
Marie Stern

The light from the TV made Jason’s face look biliously gray, anemic. “I didn’t think you could get through the biological clock anymore. There just aren’t those kind of loopholes. That’s gotta be faked. There’s no way.” more