Christmastime at The Mall
Inside the overheated atrium,
a giant sleigh overflows
with synthetic snow. Forever
white and, when touched,
dissolves into a million
toxic particles. I hear the wasp
rattling inside your ribs.
How he hums your death song.
In the meantime, you kick
at withered balloons, grind
Cheerios into your stroller seat,
wheeze your eyes bloodshot.
So it’s back to the nebulizer
and the crib, sticky with yesterday’s
milk. Your hands form into fists
while you sleep. Back at the mall,
the sleigh’s golden runners sway
each time the forced heat growls awake.
Waffle
Always one puffed waffle
on the highchair tray. My baby
picks with his pinchers, pops
pieces onto his outstretched
tongue. Little reptile, parked
near the oven where it’s warm,
where I sip soda to kill the hours.
Traces of frozen blueberry
on his face, my own fingertips
stained. The forecast will hold nothing
but space before an ice storm
slices my grown boy sideways.
He will know the moment
he loses control, water pouring
through the window seals.
He will swim into the frozen dark.
Four-hundred miles away, I will freeze,
forget the pot boiling over. Nothing
will happen to save his life.
September
The first dead leaves of summer
curl into fists on the blacktop.
I cannot leave this open window
through which I watch my son
packing the pickup truck—
six plastic storage bins,
an unassembled bookcase,
a Lavoie ski poster from Montreal.
How I yearn to hear the hum
of his animal body just a while longer.
Second born, who rose without
regard for my body recoiling.
What do I hold now if not that
baby boy? A plastic bag of hangers
he waves off, steering the truck
across the lawn, racing to get
some place where I’m not
slicing potatoes for stew.
High Tide
I wade into the bruised and swollen
sea where rugs of ribbon kelp
entwine my ankles. The current
drags me in and holds me under.
In the salt wash, flashes of diamond
light spin into my final scene.
I descend, finally free, in the murky
deep, tumbling through pinwheels
of sand, fumbling for the golden band
that has slipped so icy from my finger.
Eel grass, brittle stars, white flecks
of bone scour me in this green abyss.
Drift
The old trawler rests at anchor
east of Forchue Island. My eyes
are fixed on the horizon as I slip
into the sea. Sergeant majors,
yellowtail, a solitary glassy sweeper—
they all drift the radiant surface.
Deeper down, spotted spiny lobsters
slumber, curled in beds of jagged rocks,
their eye stalks swaying in the wake
my flippers make. Tube sponges
exhale waste through gaping mouths.
Fukushima, Three-Mile Island, Newark.
My mind is a net with one doomed
notion, shrinking, and then invisible.
Everywhere, this dying hooks me.
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Dara-Lyn Shrager lives in Princeton, New Jersey and is the co-founder and editor of Radar Poetry. She is the author of The Boy From Egypt and Whiskey, X-Ray, Yankee (finalist for the Barrow Street Poetry Prize, the Akron Poetry Prize, the Perugia Prize, and the Brittingham and Pollak Prizes from the University of Wisconsin Press). Dara-Lyn holds an MFA from Bennington College and a BA from Smith College. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in many journals, including The Los Angeles Review, Crab Creek Review, Barn Owl Review, The Greensboro Review, Nashville Review, Passages North, Salamander, Southern Humanities Review, Thrush Poetry Journal, Tinderbox Poetry Journal and Yemassee. Her poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net, and in 2024, her work will appear in the anthology Braving the Body.
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Originally from New York City, Robert Bharda has resided in the Pacific Northwest where for forty years he has specialized in vintage photographica as a profession, everything from daguerreotypes to polaroids. His digital “Quantisms” originate from templates composed of all organic materials (mushrooms, leaves, flowers, seashells, et al) and seek to release dynamic motion from fractal potential. His illustrations / artwork / photography have appeared in scores of publications, including: Naugatuck River Review, Catamaran, Cirque, Northwest Review, Blue Five, Superstition and Adirondack Review. He is also a writer of poetry, fiction, and critical reviews.
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