YOU WALKED OUT OF MY LIFE

by Susan Terris

You   my mother's cousin

Single    were like another mother

 

We talked   read   played games

Knitted scarves   until you met

 

Davy   age 10   Down Syndrome

Son of David   widower who proposed

 

I was 13   needed you   but you said

Yes   became Davy's mother

 

And I never again saw you

Then   today   looked   found only

 

Obituaries   David's from '88

Davy 1994   you    25+ years ago

Susan Terris is a freelance editor and the author of 7 books of poetry, 17 chapbooks, 3 artist's books, and 2 plays. Journals include The Southern Review, Georgia Review, Prairie Schooner, Blackbird, The New Verse News, and Ploughshares. She has had poems published both in Pushcart Prize and in Best American Poetry. Her most recent book Dream Fragments won the Swan Scythe Press Award.

DEATH TRIUMPHANT

by Howard Winn

Roger Ailes

But do not speak ill of the dead
was my mother’s advice when
I was young for as a believer
she felt that the lord’s judgment
would be fair and not need
disparaging human reminders
but those of us not so certain
there is any judgement except
the human one of a fair and honest
analysis is required in a civilized
world where true belief in being
“fair and balanced”  is merely a
hypocritical marketing slogan
rather than an honest statement of
principle and when the purveyor of
alternate facts and the misuser of
women passes from the scene as proper
victim of the bad blood of ruthless
kings honest reporting is a requirement
of an enlightened society not to fool
itself into laudatory obituaries unearned
when the evil one passes out of life
and truths of character must be disclosed.


Howard Winn's work, both short fiction and poetry has been published in Dalhousie Review, The Long Story, Galway Review, Antigonish Review, Chaffin Review, Evansville Review, 3288 Review, Straylight Literary Magazine, and Blueline.  His B. A. is from Vassar College. His M.A. is from the Stanford University Writing Program. His doctoral work was done at N.Y.U. He is Professor of English at SUNY.