The Zingara Project

Tag: Chiron Review

Squat by Gale Acuff
I don’t want to die but I’m not crazy
about living, neither, I’m ten years old
and could live a lot longer, multiply
a decade’s worth of sin and sorrow by
ten and that’s a century of shit, not
that good things won’t happen among the bad
but I’m not so sure of that now, I got
kicked out of Sunday School today because
I asked if Adam had a navel, Eve
as well, and that’s all she wrote – my teacher
gave me the heave-ho so now I’m squatting
on somebody’s headstone in the back of
our church, it’s as quiet as death, ha ha,
except for some mockingbirds and robins
so fat they can hardly chirp and when
class is over I guess I’ll go to her
and apologize, my teacher that is,
I guess there are some questions you don’t ask,
I don’t mean that they’re bad – they’re just too good.

—

Gal Acuff’s poems can be found in such literary journals as Ascent, Reed, Poet Lore, Chiron Review, Cardiff Review, Poem, Adirondack Review, Florida Review, Slant, Nebo, Arkansas Review, South Dakota Review, Roanoke Review, and many other journals in eleven countries. He has authored three books of poetry: Buffalo Nickel, The Weight of the World, and The Story of My Lives. Gale has also taught university English courses in the US, China, and Palestine.

—
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September 20, 2020
A Body Found by Will Reger
The last snow mantle
drapes your shoulders,
covers your dark readiness.

Secretly,
as I drive past along
my corridor of labor,
I love you.

Secretly,
white-laced,
wet and open.

You are the field
I will lie down in, to wait.
Crops will grow up around me.
They will scrape you bare again,
leave you bleeding, confused,
your ditches still unmown,

and there I will be.

—

Will Reger is a founding member of the CU (Champaign-Urbana) Poetry Group (cupoetry.com), has a Ph.D. from UIUC, teaches at Illinois State University in Normal, and has published most recently with Front Porch Review, Chiron Review, and the Paterson Literary Review. His first chapbook is Cruel with Eagles. He is found at https://twitter.com/wmreger — or wandering in the woods playing his flute.
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January 16, 2019
The Last Train by Will Reger
Sister, we are in an ancient place, that last
station where the living change trains.
Everyone comes here, tired of living,
ready to lay it all down, ready to be done,
or confused how they came here so soon.
It is you with the transfer ticket, dear, not me.
After you board I will travel on alone,
swing back this way some other time.
Your body jerks and rumbles with shut down.
The train you need picks up speed.
Everyone on the platform feels the power
and starts to gather up their things,
unaware — no baggage car on this train.
I would gather you once more if I could.
Your eyes are two pools of puddle water.
A last light reflects in each, like hope,
like the promise of Science or God, or like
a star falling across the sky, sparking love.

—

Will Reger is a founding member of the CU (Champaign-Urbana) Poetry Group (cupoetry.com), has a Ph.D. from UIUC, teaches at Illinois State University in Normal, and has published most recently with Front Porch Review, Chiron Review, and the Paterson Literary Review. His first chapbook is Cruel with Eagles. He is found at https://twitter.com/wmreger — or wandering in the woods playing his flute.
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November 2, 2018