By: RC deWinter
Idling
As I sit in the tawdry tail end of summer // sweaty // hair uncombed // bare feet stained with dust // I twist my mouth into a grim smile_ Sweaty // hair uncombed // wondering what you'd think of your woman now // I twist my mouth into a grim smile // so changed from the vision you carry in your head // wondering what you'd think of your woman now_ Would you turn away in the disappointment of regret // so changed from the vision you carry in your head //
or love me all the same despite the depredations of time? Would you turn away in the disappointment of regret // bare feet stained with dust // or love me all the same // despite the depredations of time // as I sit in the tawdry tail end of summer?
The Now and Then
These are hard times for the lovers of peace and beauty;
the music is loud, harsh in its discordancy, and the world
is never fair. Everywhere we go we’re haunted by whispers
carried on the breath of the dying.
Those of us with working brains have got the shot, but
even as we mask and scrub the reaper changes costume
and sometimes takes the careful despite their best precautions.
Oh, most of us will survive – for now, at least.
But when this plague passes will we recognize the landscape?
Will we recognize each other, or will we be strangers
meeting in a newly-strange land?
RC deWinter’s poetry is widely anthologized, notably in New York City Haiku (NY Times, 2/2017), easing the edges: a collection of everyday miracles, (Patrick Heath Public Library of Boerne, 11/2021) The Connecticut Shakespeare Festival Anthology (River Bend Bookshop Press, 12/2021), in print: 2River, Event, Gargoyle Magazine, the minnesota review, Night Picnic Journal, Plainsongs, Prairie Schooner, Southword, The Ogham Stone, Twelve Mile Review, Variant Literature, York Literary Review among many others and appears in numerous online literary journals.