AFTERIMAGE

by Cathleen Cohen

Portrait of Kaylin Johnson (KJ) painted by Cathleen Cohen for the Johnson family as part of the Soul Shots Project the mission of which is to bring attention to and memorialize the lives lost and tragically altered due to gun violence. KJ was shot and killed in Philadelphia in July 2021.

Painting KJ’s portrait, I peer

at an image of this beautiful boy, shot

in his parked car, waiting

 

to ferry friends to soccer practice.

His mother sends photos that capture

his smile, his jaunty shoulders.

 

I can tell he was quick

with jokes, sparking others.

His mother says he’d jump 

to carry heavy bags 

for older neighbors,

even strangers.

 

The boy who shot him

was a stranger.

Afterimage is illusion.

The brain persists in seeing

what’s removed.

 

Sometimes color memory

is repressed,

sometimes brighter.

 

I cry when I take up the brush.

What about skin tone?

Reference photos lack 

saturation

and I never met him.

Or background?

 

Brick red for urban houses?

Cobalt for sky—something

hopeful?

Cathleen Cohen was the 2019 Poet Laureate of Montgomery County, PA. A poet, painter and teacher, she created the We the Poets program for children. Her poems appear in journals such as Apiary, Baltimore Review, East Coast Ink, North of Oxford, One Art Journal, Passager, Philadelphia Stories, Poetica, River Heron Review, and Rogue Agent. She authored Camera Obscura (Moonstone Press), Etching the Ghost (Atmosphere Press) and Sparks and Disperses (Cornerstone Press). Her artwork is on view at Cerulean Arts Gallery.

CORONAVISION

by Judith Terzi




There they are—intimate backgrounds
for the news these COVID-19 days.
It's as if we were voyeurs into the lives
of those we watch & listen to. There they

are, right in their own living spaces. Fireplace
here, lampshade there. Bookshelves filled
with oeuvres that surely don't include any
of my poetry books. I see titles like I Am

That or Night Draws Near. I see games
like Yahtzee & Big Boggle. A stuffed lion
waits on one shelf. On another, a clay
hippopotamus. Dull brown pillows thrown

on a chair in a home for effect in one
interview. Or maybe it's an Airbnb rented
in haste for isolation. Probably so. The lamps
seem pretty Motel 6-like. Madame Nancy

stands in front of an abstract art piece. I love
the pastels, & her eye makeup this evening
is subtler than at her last interview. Different
lighting, perhaps. I've heard that a naked

man in a shower was accidentally on camera
thanks to a mirror not removed in time.
Someone has wedding photos hanging
in perfect alignment. She looks happier

in the black & white glossies. A former
Intelligence maven has six books on a table––
three lying down, three upright, but
upside down. Another hasty setup no doubt.

And a different maven has two copies
of Leon Panetta on a little table along with
Six Days of War. Grim, detailed reading,
for sure. Oprah has such a cool living room.

I love her comfy sofa, her unlit fireplace.
There is a low-fired turquoise pitcher
on someone else's shelf. Pottery—still no
poetry that I can spot. The avocado walls

of yet another background are rich,
as is the cranberry wall of the former
Ebola tsar. Gee, I'm dying to see the rest
of Madame Nancy's house. Aren't you?

Author of Museum of Rearranged Objects (Kelsay), as well as of five chapbooks, including Casbah and If You Spot Your Brother Floating By (Kattywompus), Judith Terzi's poems have received Pushcart and Best of the Web and Net nominations and have been read on Radio 3 of the BBC. She holds an M.A. in French Literature and taught high school French for many years as well as English and French at California State University, Los Angeles, and in Algiers, Algeria.