by Alan Bern
Waiting Room
Chairs full of ghosts, uncrowned
royalty, those queens and princes
of the unmapped village
known as their own lives.
Naugahyde seat now a throne
where silent details evaporate,
the ones that never made it
into a photograph.
Small and tender moments
unseen but not invisible.
This morning’s rain,
the way it pocked
the dry sidewalk, sent up
a dusty acrid smell, like dying
embers from a forgotten
fire. The day, not yet
spoken for, though no one
told the birds who sang,
frenzied in their calls,
from a perch so camouflaged
it seemed the branches
made music, an oaken
melody of praise.
It is the hour when
the world does not
explain itself. Logic
rests on its laurels,
slips away unnoticed
and all that is left,
distilled out, is a titration
of something heartfelt
the way the chest
stop heaving, stops
begging for mercy.
So that this morning
can arise, trancelike,
a reminder of presence
in an afternoon when all
that seems to matter
is absence. Four or five
strangers silent in chairs,
magazine pages open,
naugahyde announcement
of every shift, limbs
recrossing. Ears tuned
to the call of a name
claimed since birth
although the syllables
sound strange pronounced
from a chart. As if that name
has been assigned to someone
the morning rain neglected,
left alone, without birdsong or breeze.
Ginnie Goulet Gavrin is a retired massage therapist. She teaches meditation and writing workshops at the Monadnock Mindfulness Practice Center in Keene, New Hampshire. She holds an MFA from Stonecoast MFA in Creative Writing. Her work has appeared in The Literary Review, The Worcester Review, Slipstream, Leaping Clear, The Greensboro Review, Rewilding: A Split Rock Anthology, Cold Mountain Review, Tar River Poetry, Silk Road Review.
Retired children’s librarian Alan Bern has published three books of poetry and has a hybrid fictionalized memoir, IN THE PACE OF THE PATH, forthcoming from UnCollected Press. Recent awards include: Winner, Saw Palm Poetry Contest (2022); Honorable Mention, Littoral Press Poetry Prize(2021). Recent and upcoming writing and photo work include: CERASUS, Thanatos, The Hyacinth Review, DarkWinter, and Mercurius. Alan is a published/exhibited photographer, and he performs with dancer/choreographer Lucinda Weaver as PACES: dance & poetry fit the space and with musicians from Composing Together. Lines & Faces, his press with artist/printer Robert Woods: linesandfaces.com. https://www.instagram.com/abobern/ https://twitter.com/AlanBern1/ https://www.facebook.com/alan.bern.1.