The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Cynthia Nitz Ris YOU WALK urging foot after foot. He pleads with you. Purple crescent moons You sit, open your hands, ask him ask him to imagine a dream He says: You hold your hands together. PLAGUE Seventeen years ago locusts spilled their songs across every summer day. My son would strip abandoned shells from tree barks and toss the papery casts into the air as if jubilation meant this shower. Locusts trill now as the cat talks back, hunching at the window sill. TV reporters push mics toward witnesses at Baghdad’s latest bombing while I open letters filmed with dust and watch as the death toll rises in a blink of the cat’s eye. Copyright 2006-2012 by Cook Communication |