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| Issue 9: | August 2021 |
| Poetry: | 73 words [R] 213 words [R] |
By Brian Rihlmann
Two Poems
An Extra Breath
We sat on a bench by the river’s edge, talking and laughing, then you reached— toward me I thought— and with your finger tore a tangled spider web between the slats, freeing a little grey moth caught there beating frantic wings. It perched on your finger a moment, until you held it aloft and gently blew, smiling as it flew. I breathed an extra breath as something in me soared.
—Published previously in Hello Poetry (October 2018); appears here with poet’s permission.
Things I’ll Remember
the empty skies, streets, and shelves signs on every shop door how it snowed late on the flowers already blooming how the weight of it broke certain branches but not others the jungle gym at the park wrapped in yellow caution tape vibrating slowly in the breeze how that little boy cried because he couldn’t use the slide how I sat on an empty bus bench and watched the cars go by studying the taut faces inside some of them masked— maybe all of them— how I reached out for my guitar more often, remembering how it cured me of more than one panic attack, the steel strings like a security blanket how walking through my neighborhood I felt the urge to wave at every stranger who passed on the opposite sidewalk how I reached out to people I hadn’t talked to in years just to ask: how you doing? how often I thought of those whose fingertips I brush daily at ATMs, doorknobs, gas pumps, how we trade skin, DNA, our lives, while picking fruit at the market how we are the very air and sky breathing each other every moment whereas before, I trudged most days completely alone, touching no one, now I never felt so strangely... connected
—Published previously in Lummox Poetry Anthology #9 (2020); appears here with poet’s permission.
Brian Rihlmann
lives and writes free verse poetry in Reno, Nevada. His work has appeared in many magazines, including The Rye Whiskey Review, The American Journal of Poetry, The Blue Nib, Cajun Mutt Press, Fearless, Heroin Love Songs, Chiron Review, Slipstream, and The Main Street Rag. His latest poetry collection, Night At My Throat, was published in 2020 by Pony One Dog Press.
More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond
⚡ Three Poems by Rihlmann in Cultural Daily (21 October 2020)
⚡ Book Review/Interview: Brian Rihlmann, Ordinary Trauma (Alien Buddha Press, 2019) by George Anderson in Bold Monkey Review (16 March 2020)
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