by Jan Wiezorek

Mourning

Sad wires

have set themselves

to humming in the backyard.

Unsettled peace

greys the rows

of tree fuzz.

Cardinals peep

contrapuntally,

slightly anxious.

My facial tics

pause in memory

of my bent neighbor.

She pushed

her walker

to the green plastic barrel.

We heard

whispers in the alley

off the main road.

Now, maudlin electricians

are raising new poles,

re-stringing wires,

giving the dead woman

many mourners.

Orange-lighted trucks

process along the alleyway.

A leaf turns

to remove its hat.

---

Silent Stones

At the borderland

of wood and quarry,

I sunk along sumac.

I like to snap

twigs and hear lambs’ ear

in my forest furnaces.

Every molten generation

sits in flush

and smokehouse pink,

like a wandering lad

who sees deer

in nude exchange.

Those rocks mark

my mother’s weeds.

I’m a tramping kid

who dropped off

the quarry’s edge.

It killed her insides

like a stumble

of silent stones

above our yard.

---

Jan Wiezorek has taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and his poetry has appeared or is forthcoming at The London Magazine, Southern Pacific Review, Bindweed Magazine, Panoplyzine, Better Than Starbucks, and Schuylkill Valley Journal. He is author of Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011) and holds a master’s degree in English Composition/Writing from Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago.