by Alan Bern
Flatiron, 2084
A blazar blasts
a clean line of white
light through the window
weeping bastion of steel-
skeleton sheltered
inside a glaze
of terracotta symmetry—
prow plowing up
through memory
of squeal and throb
on Broadway, Fifth,
23rd Street.
Its luminous line,
a heat-streaking
tongue, travelling at
the speed of light
from the moon-eyed
mouth of an elliptical
galaxy—spectral
ravager swilling
grit and glass, bone
and ash, tearing
in root to touch
the Earth’s hazy sun.
Below, six
desert fathers wend
their way in worship
across the dunes,
beneath stone-
eyed cherubs and a god’s
shield-masked tomb.
They mouth round words
into their handkerchiefs
and spill shadows onto sand
that cracks ochre
at their feet.
Mary Beth Hines’s poetry, short fiction, and non-fiction appear in journals such as Brilliant Flash Fiction, Crab Orchard Review, Literary Mama, Madcap Review, and SWWIM among many others. She writes from her home in Massachusetts, and is thrilled that Kelsay Books will publish her first poetry collection in 2022. Visit her at www.marybethhines.com.
Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern’s poetry books: No no the saddest and Waterwalking in Berkeley, Fithian Press; greater distance and other poems, Lines & Faces, his broadside press with artist and printer Robert Woods, linesandfaces.com. Among Alan’s awards: his poem “Boxae” was first runner-up for The Raw Art Review’s first Mirabai Prize for Poetry, 2020, and he won a medal in 2019 from SouthWest Writers for a WWII story set in Italia. Recent photos: unearthedesf.com/alan-bern-2/, pleaseseeme.com/issue-7/art/alan-bern-art-psm7/, mercurius.one/home/alanbern. Alan performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit to the space and with musicians from Composing Together, composingtogether.org.