Sam Watson

5/25/22

I was impressed
the normally heedless traffic
for a second stopped, unprompted
—some goslings crossing.

I think we all feel a little raw about that.

It was likely the same … Read more

Modern Buffalo

the shooter was mapping out the aisles for weeks
too many buffaloes
we watch how they run
on the hooves of previous days, last
week my friend’s daughter graduated from … Read more

Thirty Pieces

Thirty Pieces
the man in midnight colored cassock murmurs
God’s work is done
thirty pieces jingling
he offers a thousand hosannas
to the prophet
a little foul-mouthed and avaricious, but … Read more

For Deborah Samuel

Image: Vanguard NGR News

You should have picked the salt
from my body grain
by grain before you stoned me
or at least chosen
stones of the same size
and … Read more

A Trace of Light

A trace of light falls upon
the land of Ukraine where
a forgotten child is left alone
with his own private sorrows,
where God has turned His
burning eyes knowing … Read more

Kneel and Pray

I’m back to hiding under my third-grade desk
back down here with the gum
while the shirtless bully grabs for our crayons
again and demands we thank him for it… Read more

Night Light

Constructed cream
embedded with cutlery
missing plates,
indigo Lincoln
rumbling toward me,

landline phone
with a large black
switch, a beret
& teeth to pitch
me awake

into a curtained … Read more

The Polish Border

Your baby
looks like our baby bundled into her pink snowsuit.
Yours is zipped into a snowsuit with flowers.
You hold her up to the Red Cross worker.
The international … Read more

The Hunger Of War

Image: https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-piece-of-paper-with-an-anti-war-message-11302918/

They’re piling up
or splayed out
on streets
body after body
civilians
unarmed
or ill-advisedly
armed
in haste
and heroism
their meat is needed
to feed the hunger.… Read more