My poem Song is in the current issue of Third Wednesday. Here is the poem:
Song
“He has no one to blame but himself,”
she murmured,
in the rhythmic cadence of grief—
a patter as old as life on earth.
She sang softly,
yet her voice filled the pale green room
and hung in the acrid air.
We waited
for a surgeon to appear—
his consecrated hands
signing thumbs up,
thumbs down.
“He brought it on himself,”
she sang once more.
They had brought him in at 2 AM
shot twice—
belly and lung—
and rushed him to surgery.
“It’s his own damn fault,”
she crooned in a voice
a cantor would kill for.
It was 8 now
Saturday Services had just begun
at the synagogue down the block—
the old, the young, and the damaged
chanted in an ancient dying tongue
for the world to heal itself.
“No, no,”
she began to chant
just as the door to the operating room
opened with a pneumatic hiss.
The sounds—
alien and human
mixed for a moment
in the pale green anteroom
between life and death.
Here is a link to the magazine’s website:
Stevie's Law 