Ray Keifetz
Safe Haven
Old men cry at night,
squat on the curb,
a pot, a plate,
mutter themselves
across the gutter
onto a chart.
Blood today,
tomorrow their hearts.
Hospital sheets
blinded by the moon,
old men cry at night
to God, to geese.
I send them postcards
wishing they were here.
Passing Through
Through a bug lit screen
townies shout hallo
at a shadow
walking the muggy street
their light can’t reach.
Where I’ve been
no escaping the yellow bulb.
Where I’m going
no pretending.
But here where porches glow
through moths and trusting hallo’s
I face the screen,
the night perfect
without me.
He Wears My Father’s Mask
He enters my room
nibbling
a slice of coffee cake.
Who invited him?
Who let him in?
My mother let him in.
He wears my father’s mask.
The mask whispers
Shall I tell you a secret?
No
I answer.
I already know.
Winter Poem
The dead fir drifted
into February,
brown needles dropping
onto Florentine wrapping
as we kept giving
and giving . . .
Ray Keifetz is the author of two poetry collections: Night Farming in Bosnia, Bitter Oleander Press, winner of that press’s Library of Poetry award; and Museum Beasts, Broadstone Books. His stories and poems have appeared in the Ashland Creek Press, Gargoyle, Kestrel, Osiris, Phantom Drift, RHINO, and others, and have received three Pushcart Prize nominations. He lives and writes in rural New Hampshire.