by Thomas Moore

When did you graduate? is the usual
question. Oh, you taught there. What

did you teach? It happens at Hannaford.
It happens at Renys. On the waterfront.

My Maine Maritime jacket sparks
the conversations. My son’s in the Gulf.

He’s mate on a supply vessel. Makes trips
out to the rig in all sorts of dirty weather.

Or, I studied business logistics. Work
for McCrum right here in Belfast. My

courses were art history and writing —
alien worlds to most Academy students.

But they liked Frost’s “‘Out, out . . . ’”
because they’d cut years of cordwood

and Wormser’s “January” where the man
pokes his finger into the truck’s frozen

carburetor. In the Bob’s Red Mill aisle
at Renys a woman tells me her son has

sailed for ten years. I ask if he’s deck or
engine. Engine, she says. Learned to weld

at the Academy and now he’s making a sculpture
for the El Faro crew. He knew a lot of them.

Hasn’t shown it to anyone yet. She winces,
her face seeming to draw upward under her

knitted wool cap. She insists we exchange
names. I’ll ask him if he remembers you.

by Leslie Moore

we startle each other
to stillness
on the coastal road

he flicks
his stub tail
in panic

picks up
his feet
one at a time
as if the parts
aren’t connected
hoof hock knee

a puppet
no puppeteer

when all
four feet
work
in tandem
he skids
herky jerky
off the road

dissipates
into trees

leaving me
incandescent

by Judy Kaber

The woman rises, one hand
on the chair’s arm, the other
held by a younger woman.
As she stands, her lips
press together, her eyes almost
close. A necklace hangs
loose. A pleated skirt
covers her legs. Only
her arms and face
go unclothed. Someone once
kissed her, bent over her
in bed, tasted her sweet
breath. Three other women
sit in a circle with her.
All of them in wheelchairs.
Knuckles like rocks. Once
they worried about loose
wires, wolves, sounds
careening outside the house.
Now they have come
to the country of the old.
One woman clasps her hands
beneath her chin, as if
to ask a question. One keeps
her shoulders hunched,
tongue lost in a haze.
Three young women
attend to them, look
down on blue veins, sick
faces, touch them
without their consent.

by Larry Sawyer

The poet is prone
to circumnavigate the globe
even if it’s only a coffee table
poor Orpheus

this poet is a rare
starfish on a barbecue
that poet is a neon
sign flashing yes

my body goes
when I want it to
I’m not afraid of
snakes

let us defend
Social Security, let us
be nice to strangers
for here comes the flood.