TRAVELING IN PLACE

by John Azrak






I pull down my mask, gaze out over the Sound
the coastline asleep, buoys bare, the distant kayak’s
shell a streak of yellow paint; fog eclipses
the Throgs Neck Bridge and John Prine is on a jelly roll—
has been since I left the house—loose-limbed and impish
feeding the pigeons some clay, walking off his blues slyly
taking down the disheveled girl in the White House,
Lady Liberty, she must be, caught in an embarrassing situation
but—oh yes, John—a situation just the same. What you knew.
I take a deep breath, pull up the mask, adjust the AirPods—
two miles down, three to go—happy to walk with James Taylor
to Mexico then Carolina in his mind as I head to the Point
where across the sound Gatsby’s East Egg absent
the green light, Dylan conjuring the sun, sand, spirit breezes
of Mozambique, the pretty girls (so many) left behind
before off he is to imaginary Black Diamond Bay, storm brewing
verse to swelling verse until a volcano erupts that sinks the island,
all souls lost when I reach the inlet’s park, its empty picnic tables,
trash-bagged b-ball hoops, hooded like criminals on crosses,
deserted monkey bars: Misery loves company but not these days.
I forego my half-way bench (germs? really? maybe? fuck it)
under the curved spine of a dogwood I lean against, scroll through
the sleek Fitbit watch— number of steps, miles, calories burned,
numbers for the heart senseless, embarrassingly so, with nearly 100,000
Americans dead on trump’s watch—and I need to run, Sonny Rollins
blowing a heart thumping storm of his own, tribute to St. Thomas,
the no doubt about it Virgin Island, ancestral home of the young
saxophone colossus, upbeat Sonny, pulsating New York City Sonny,
now ninety Sonny still playing, plague be damned, what hasn’t he
faced up to? I think, climb the Vanlose Stairway in Copenhagen
with Van Morrison’s soul rollicking live in Montreux band
before the quick transfer to his Trans-Euro train—
Kilroy was here Kilroy was here Kilroy was here
flashing on walls hard driving Van picking up my pace
as I hop the Marrakesh Express, CSN”s sweet harmonies
broken by Dylan’s edgy longing (she might be in Tangiers)
the Slow Train Coming slowing me to a jog on the final bend,
John Prine coming back around, missing him as my heart races—
Hello in There, John, Hello

John Azrak lives in New York and has published fiction and poetry in a wide variety of literary journals and anthologies.

JOHN PRINE

by Meghan Sterling




How fragile is the human body,
all cells and skin, tissue-thin,
light as filament in the center of the bulb,
as quick to flicker and go out.
Another one gone. Lungs to shreds,
voices done in one by one
as we lose a generation of lovers,
people with grit to bear hard things,
all that disappointment like bitters
in the throat, fire as it goes down,
medicine as it heals. O, these songs
that cradled us as we wept and were alone.
I remember a snowfall so deep
the very white of it was dark as death,
and I listened to records that sustained
my tender hold on life, each day another day
I soldiered through.  And I have you to thank
for many of the moments that I chose to go on.

Meghan Sterling lives in Portland, Maine with her family. She is co-editor of the anthology A Dangerous New World: Maine Voices on the Climate Crisis published by Littoral Books. Her work has been published in Rattle, Balancing Act 2, Glass: A Journal of Poetry, Driftwood Press, Sky Island Journal, Literary Mama and others.  Her chapbook How We Drift was published by Blue Lyra Press. She is a poetry reader for the Maine Review, Featured Poet in Frost Meadow Review’s Spring 2020 issue, and a Hewnoaks Artists' Colony Resident in 2019 and 2020.