Trace Estes, managing editor of Alsop Review, lives in the Shadows and likes the view. For thirty-five years, he has been forced to write by a pissed-off demon with a trident. Recent publications include Tilt, WORM #34, kaleidowhirl, Centrifugal Eye and the print anthologies Mind Mutations and Slow Dancing to Invisible Music.
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
Read more Poetry or Postcard Prose
