R L Swihart was born in Michigan but now resides in Long Beach CA. (He just completed a “road trip” — from Long Beach to Michigan and back again — stopping at various wildlife sanctuaries along the way.) His work has sparsely dotted both online and print literary journals such as Cordite, Denver Quarterly, Pif, Poetry South, and Quadrant Magazine. His third book of poetry, Woodhenge, was released July 2020.
We followed her in, a stray, the fattest & first, the temple cat./ In a niche by the altar she crouches, watches them come: the/ mad parade we’d wanted, this troupe of heretics — the ass,/ alpaca, gyrfalcon — unbroken line of celebrants, creatures ...
Mother comes to me as I’m making honey cake, / measuring out sugar then whipping eggs. / Never mind that Mother left this earth / eighteen months earlier...
I miss things: swooping, diving, passionate voices/ in several African tongues, so far beyond me/ they might as well have beamed from the constellations.
Here’s the river I stepped in more than twice.// I can’t see them but I know the boats/ are going by in the sturdy fog...
And now you explore the hidden pockets and come up/ with a City Guide (in English) you picked up in Amsterdam./ Why did I keep that? Where were we going? But she’s/ not there to answer
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