Howie Good



VOYEUR

We kick the dog
off the bed.

The moon’s
looking in.

Instill one
or two drops

in affected eye(s)
as needed.


SNAPSHOT WITH A SHAKY CAMERA

Mom’s bent
like a shepherd’s crook.
She has something
broken inside her.
A cold gray light falls
across her face,
the last task of evening.


THE RAINDROP PRELUDE

It’s impossible to see the scoreboard from where I sit. I must strain to even see some of the field. The crowd waits in a kind of trance for the starting lineups to be announced. I wait for a vendor to toil up the steep concrete steps, shouting, Cold beer here, a tray strapped like a homemade bomb to his chest. The man in the seat in front of me abruptly turns around. His face is pitted like a strip-mined planet. Why’s the knuckleball so hard to hit? he asks. I stare off into the distance, pretend he isn’t talking to me. Columns of black smoke rise beyond the right field wall. I try to remember who we’re playing. I try to remember which dream this is.

Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of four poetry collections, most recently Dreaming in Red, from Right Hand Pointing. All proceeds from the sale of the book go to a crisis center, which you can read about here. He is also the author of numerous chapbooks, including The Devil’s Fuzzy Slippers from Flutter Press and Personal Myths from Writing Knights Press. He has two other chapbooks forthcoming, Fog Area from Dog on a Chain Press and The Death of Me from Pig Ear Press.
 
 
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