A Checklist for Dying
by Vicki MaykGet a notebook. It doesn’t have to be fancy, the hospice nurse says. A spiral one -- the kind kids use in school -- will do. Pick the cheerful...
Issue 17: Winter 2023
Dear Friends of eMerge, Welcome to 2023. I am so grateful to be bringing you another issue of eMerge, filled with poetry, prose, and recipes that can...
Christmas Eve Dinner
Annie stood outside the arrivals area of terminal 4, Kennedy Airport, her hands already numb from the dreaded cold in New York City. She was waiting for a...
Tides for Sale
Static timeBig old stupid cityOn the embankment of rug and tasselWhat could lapAt a shore this oldBut pruned and petted candiesStrings of spongeFrom tops of...
Pigeon-Hawk
I awoke this morning, as I have for almost forty-six years now, angry, discontented, irritable and world-weary. Thinking back, I seem to have come into the...
Coup de grace
(The needle and the damage done)I couldn’t make my hands abandonthe comfort of that crazy fursticking up everywhere at oddslike a little gray bear’s...
Counting Trees
The air is different here.My block in Royal Oak Township on Detroit’s border has become relatively bereft of trees.My block in Ann Arbor, Michigan, a mere...
You Can Change Your Life in Arkansas
Especially if you fly on Christmas,the hours in the air a meditationupon the months and year. You think salvationmight be yours if only you shake your fistat...
Spider
I tried to save a spiderfrom my stationwhere I was workingwith nails and hammers;wooden splinters flying.How was I to knowdust would overpower her?That she’d...
The Porch
If I had a porch, I wouldwant to sit with my grandfather,learn to swear like a sailor andlisten to his stories.Of sailing the oceans onfour masted ships and...
Shadowleaves
I amcolorson the outsideI brushup against my insidesrushing forwardI trace myselfback into life —livingfolded upagainst the worldcharting a courseI am...
Fun Town
Tulsa is a fun townbut it’s not a funny oneSam Kinison lies buriedin Tulsa just eight miles fromthe Center of the Universeand just ten miles fromthe center...
Final Visitor
Death camebarefootto the door,wrapped indowny wingsthe colorof dusk.Wearing eyesof pale blue sky,she bent lowto kiss cold,parched lips,taking a lastbreath.
There Is a Door
“At the end of my suffering,there was a door.”~ Louise GluckAlways. Across the once-green expansehilling the horizon edged with cedarsleaning into each other...
No Man’s Land
Red turkey wheat heads bob above the flat horizonMimicking war bonnets bouncing on galloping steeds.Beating drums of hooves pound the earthCharging red-hot...
Ode to Myself at 12 Years
After William WordsworthThere was a time when I did not fearthe future that lay ahead of me;I did not hesitate to go nearand never would I flee,but ever-...
Rain Delay, Broadcast
“Friday it rained all day - there was no ball game. So we stayed home, we listened to it on the radio.” - Chico, in the Marx Brothers’ Duck SoupIn this...
Domesticity like The Cubs
The same thump as thumbsMeets youAnd greets youPush downWithThe pink cross on the music man’s backWho taught us toTeach time and waitingReach for stupid...
Circles
We don’t runin the same circlesBut she’s there forevery time I readShe always comes withsomeone I don’t knowBut she always comeswhenever I read andsits on...
Postpartum
Three thirty in the morningShe sat up in bedWearing the nightgown with holesMechanical pump on her breastStaring out over the backyardDespairingHer mind told...