Accomplice | Tom Versteeg

You're barely down off the red ball
and somebody says here
help me shake open
this valise full of bones.
The handle against you fingers
is so smooth
and so cool, but what you'll stare at
when your eyes close even years hence
is the way each femur glowed
like the nightstick of a cop
from the land of the dead.


Taken from the 2008 issue of The Wire Harp.

Aftermath | Lisa Oman

"There's nothing left."
The words pierce my heart at first,
But then bounce off.
There had to be something!
We drive past flattened houses and rubble.
Even the trees were smashed,
Molded to the ground.
I turn to look at our house.
Grandpa's staircase stands,
as if it hadn't been informed
Of any Hurricane.
It climbed steadily up,
to midair.
He always bragged how damn sturdy
Them ol' stairs were.


Taken from the 1996 issue of The Wire Harp.

The Long Porch | Bonnie Haines

We climbed the railings in our dirty white sneakers,
ate warm, sweet mangoes in the musky shade
beneath the deck.
There were boards we knew,
boards that creaked,
those that shifted and sank
slightly at a step.
We had the territory marked out,
defined by our own set of signposts.

The tops of the trees were as familiar
as the trunks,
personally handled by each of us,
hand and foot.
We knew the wind in those trees,
all the sounds of night and day--
the birdsong in dewy morning light,
rustling and cracking of branches
mingling just above our heads
as we clambered over the railing
into the jungle.



Taken from the 1992 issue of The Wire Harp.

Watching People Sleep
(I like to think she Knew I was there)


Sometimes
when I'm awake at night,
I go to your room and
watch you sleep, my daughter says.
She is eight.
I try to remember--
did I feel her gaze
across the room
in the morning light?
I like to think I knew
she was there.

The last time
I watched my mother sleep,
she floated
in a water-filled mattress,
belly swollen
by the football-sized tumor.
She opened morphine eyes and
I think
looked at me.
Had she felt my gaze
across the room
in the morning light?
She closed her eyes.
She died.
I like to think she knew
I was there.
I was thirty-six.

~By Pat Kondas~

Taken from the 1997 issue of The Wire Harp.