We are pleased to offer our Poets Read series in honor of National Poetry Month 2019 and will run it throughout the month of April.
Every day in April, our website and our YouTube channel will feature the voice of a poet whose work has appeared in our pages over the past year. On Sundays, we will offer two poets for your enjoyment.
Today’s poems are You Remember Her by Lennart Lundh, which appeared in the Winter 2019 issue of Gyroscope Review, and Three Seals by Kali Lightfoot, which appeared in the Spring 2018 issue of Gyroscope Review.
You remember her
by Lennart Lundh
I'm sure, the woman with the spare room full of analog clocks of all sizes and ages, full of their
gears knocking escapements, some running faster than the rest, no two striking the same
except by accidents of differing speeds. Her life was equally chaotic, yet somehow it worked
just enough that someone always loved her, reciprocated care and comfort, helped her make
the bed they used as loudly as a room full of clocks. She also had one wall in the foyer, the
short one across from the door, covered in keys, bright and dulled, exquisite and antique, all
hanging silent and used. Her lovers knew their time with her was finished when the key that
fit their heart was added to the gallery, leaving only memories immortal and intact.
Three Seals
by Kali Lightfoot
after Richie Hofmann
1 – 12:25 a.m. December 28, 2012, City Hall, Portland, Maine
Two men stand on the top step, hold hands,
parkas unzipped to show matching t-shirts –
Love Is Love – standing below them we cheer,
wave candles, they hold up their marriage license,
with its gold seal of the State of Maine:
first state where citizen’s votes made gay marriage
legal. The first couple steps down
into hugs, pelted by flowers, we watch
for the next, prepared to cheer every pair,
our voices husky with cold.
2 – A summer morning, Boothbay Harbor
Today in the quiet of purple dawn,
a harbor seal treads water
ten feet from my solo canoe,
onyx eyes fixed on me. I stare back,
watch nostril slits open, close,
open. We breath together awhile.
3 – November 12, 2016, Salem, Massachusetts
Our post office, built 1933, Colonial Revival
architecture so convincing I imagine
mailmen in three-corner hats and breeches
descend the graceful front stairs I climb
to mail another donation I can’t afford –
this one for wilderness protection
follows others for civil liberties, racial justice,
reproductive rights. What to do on this day of feeling
unheard, unseen; what to do but lick the envelope,
seal my check inside, stop at the bronze slot
and tip the flap, feel a puff of air as my hopes
land on all the others there in the dark.
About the Poets:
Lennart Lundh is a poet, short-fictionist, historian, and photographer. His work has appeared internationally since 1965. Other readings of Len’s poems can be found on YouTube and Soundscape. His work can be found by searching the Internet, while his books are available at www.etsy.com/shop/VisionsWords and on Amazon.
Kali Lightfoot lives and writes in Salem, MA. Her poems have appeared in journals including Gyroscope, *82 Review, Lavender Review (Pushcart nomination) and Poetry South (Pushcart nomination); anthologies The Wildest Peal, Come Shining, and Feminine Rising (forthcoming). She has written reviews of poetry books for Bookslut, Broadsided Press and Solstice. Kali earned an MFA in Writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2015.