ON THE FOURTH WEDNESDAY OF NOVEMBER

by Peter Neil Carroll

Source: Exquisitely Unremarkable

Outside the little grocery, a woman

in a black cloth coat and feather hat

waits quietly near the electric door.

 

A shopper, stocked with pie crust,

biscuit mix, garlic flavored Velveeta

for the grits, pushes her cart

 

with one hand, the other fingers

a folded $5-dollar bill, looking  

to give it away for Thanksgiving.

Neither says a word.

 

Peter Neil Carroll's seventh collection of poetry, Talking to Strangers, will be published in 2022. He lives in northern California.  

LIVING THINGS

by Gil Hoy

Until you’ve hurled the spear
or triggered the bullet

Pulled the jagged blade from
still warm flesh and washed

Blood from your hands,

Watched twinkling brilliant
eyes go cold and dark,

Put the plastic-wrapped package back
in the case and be on your way

You know not what you do.

Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer currently studying poetry at Boston University through its Evergreen program where he had received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as Brookline MA Selectman for 4 terms. Hoy's poetry appears or is upcoming in Right Hand Pointing-One Sentence Poems, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News and The Penmen Review.