Local News from Someplace Else

      Copyright © 2013 Marjorie Maddox. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.

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      199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3

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      isbn 13: 978-1-62564-094-9

      eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7057-1

      Manufactured in the U.S.A.

      To Gary, my safe haven

      Acknowledgments

      The author gratefully acknowledges the following publications in which many of the poems first appeared.

      Adanna: “After Having Children, We Reintroduce Ourselves to Bicycles,” “Goldfish”

      American Jones Building & Maintenance. Ed. Von G. Binuia. Concord, NH: Missing Spoke Press, 1999: “Settled,” “Still Life of House in Late March”

      Arabesques: “Extra Towels,” “First Snow”

      BigCityLit: “Photographing the Spa for the Color Brochure”

      Blackwater Review: “Gluttony”

      Blueline: “Ithaca Winter”

      Boxcar Poetry Review: “Appropriate”

      Christianity & Literature: “June 1st Liturgy,” “Minersville Diner,” “Still Life of House in Late March”

      Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets on Pennsylvania. Eds. Marjorie Maddox and Jerry Wemple. State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2005: “Pennsylvania September: The Witnesses”

      Drexel On-Line: “Appropriate”

      Drive, She Said: “Renting”

      Essential Love. Ed. Ginny Lowe Connors. West Hartford, CN: Poetworks/Grayson Books, 2000: “The Time Is Midnight”

      Fiddleblack: “Real Estate Sign”

      The Heart of All That Is: Reflections on Home. Ed. Jim Perlman. Duluth, MN: Holy Cow! Press, 2013: “Settled”

      Hurricane Blues: Poems about Katrina and Rita. Eds. Philip C. Kolin and Susan Swartwout. Cape Girardeau, MO: Southeast Missouri State University Press, 2006: “Jazz Memorial”

      In a Fine Frenzy: Poets Respond to Shakespeare. Eds. David Starkey and Paul J. Willis. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2005: “Cancer Diagnosis”

      Inkwell: “Montoursville, PA”

      Inspirit: “Pennsylvania September: The Witnesses”

      Literary Mama: “Afternoon Nap”

      Martin Luther King, Jr. Project: “Woman, 91, Frozen to Floor”

      The Mom Egg: “First Layout”

      The Montserrat Review: “Indelible”

      New Verse News: “Reoccurring Storms”

      North Carolina Humanities Review: “Conversion”

      North Chicago Review: “Woman, 91, Frozen to Floor”

      The Other Journal: “Nine Alive!”

      Petroglyph: “Learning to Weather”

      phati’tude Literary Magazine: “Jazz Memorial”

      Reconfigurations: “Abstract”

      Remembering the Future. Eds. Chris Keller and Andrew David. Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2008: “Nine Alive!”

      Runes: “Death Defying,” 2004 Finalist for Runes Poetry Award, judged by Jane Hirschfield

      The Same: “Anachronism,” “Backwards Barn Raising,” “H. G. Who?” “Homecoming”

      Say the Word: Poems on Joy, 2002 Contest Finalist, judged by David St. John: “Extra Towels”

      So to Speak: “Twin Infants at the Olan Mills Portrait Studio”

      Standing on the Ceiling. Ed. and Illus. Joanne Fox. Sausalito, CA: Foxfold Press, 1998: “Afternoon Nap,” “Treat”

      Thin Air: “Donation”

      Verse Wisconsin: “Fatal Shock Mystery: Experts Look for Answers after Tragedy”

      Watershed: “Montoursville, PA”

      The Women’s Review of Books: “39,” “Swimming Pregnant at the YWCA,” “Woman, 91, Frozen to Floor”

      The Postcard

      Summer is going quickly. We are

      very busy. My brother and his family all

      died in a plane crash. Hope to see

      you soon when we fly that way . . .

      What we scrunch on a 3 x 5

      wants happiness as bland

      as the heat waving at us

      from beneath its sunglasses and umbrella,

      simplicity so boring we relax in it,

      order another drink.

      But somewhere between

      the Eiffel Tower and Empire State Building,

      between your miss you’s and wish you were here’s,

      fact slips in, inked lightning across skies

      as bright as a Las Vegas smile.

      In a postcard of Sunset Strip

      amidst a list of Hollywood celebrities:

      “The plane was the same

      as JFK, jr.’s.” And on the backside

      of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

      “The memorial service was short.”

      All summer I listen

      for clouds cracking open with you,

      your brief alphabet of grief swooping in

      from the skies with the late-morning mail.

      There is room here to land

      in the ordinary,

      a clearing for what is missing.

      I’m waiting to hear from Madrid,

      from Tokyo and Madagascar,

      where loss, I’ve read, flies fastest

      in the smallest of words.

      Homecoming

      And maybe when you arrive—

      stumbling up the cracked path

      thick with hopscotch chalk and weeds—

      a stranger will answer the door,

      insist you’re no longer on Elm,

      that this is not your home.

      Autumn will well up, swell in the gutters

      you cleaned every year since twelve,

      spill into the color of a landscape