Ray Keifetz
Somewhere in a Meadow
I want nothing from this man.
But try to live without this man,
his cannibal breath,
his raw red wallet.
When he says jump
I jump.
When he says kneel—
When he shouts where,
the woman who sweetened this seat
drive me there,
I don’t pretend a five is not a five,
a ten a ten.
Perfume lingers.
Her face in the rearview mirror,
her hair—
Somewhere in a meadow
pink and blue
with forget-me-nots
crushed by hearts
creatures like me are weaving wreathes
of loves and love-me-nots.
Somewhere in that meadow
I dropped a crumpled petal
that tried to live
on light alone.
Fathers
Last night my father beat me.
My father beat my mother’s brother.
My father beat my mother.
My father beat the father who beat me.
My father beat you for beating me.
My father beat me for being beaten.
. . .
In the desert
we traded lies
for water
but nothing
for flowers.
Mercy of Covered Bridges
Closer to fallen trees
than timbers raised,
closer to ruin than rising,
their dark roofed hallways
dole out crossings drop by drop
to shadows of second-growth leaves,
horse drawn summers,
drop by drop
like syrup to old men on the bank
for whom no crossing could be sweeter
than a crossing out
of time.
Spinning, sliding,
every road black ice
and the river foaming—
Our very first crossing
lashed by sleet
a ploughman walked home
over water.
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.