PRIDE

Dedicated to Vice President of the United States Mike 'Hoosier Daddy' Pence

 

~ Porte D'entrée ~

 

The DM Spring Appeal

 

Adam Henry Carrière

 

Christina Dalcher

 

James Diaz

 

LauraJean Ermayne & Gene Damon

 

John Ladd

 

Brant Lyon

 

Jamie Parsley

 

The DM Stonewall Issues

 

Peter Weltner

 

♠ ♥ ♣ ♦

 

Peter Weltner

Empathy

 

1.

Fifty two years ago, a young woman

is murdered in Queens.  Her brother, a vet,

a double amputee in Vietnam,

makes a documentary to learn why–

what, stabbed, she felt as her dying began.

He hires an actress he’d never met

to scream like her. It’s not the same,

he knows, sobbing as he hears her cry.

 

2.

This painting’s your woods, the moon

sun-bright, a gray, curvy lane

rising like smoke, thin-

nest near the forest. Soon

it’ll be dark. Tall pine, stripped cane

line the way. Go in. Walk deeper in.

 

 

from The Return of What's Been Lost, Marrowstone Press, Seattle, 2017