by Jan Wiezorek

Pumpkins smashed across the floor, a site of blood—though, of course, these are vague details, notions passed mouth to mouth over coffee, words for a beachside community facing trauma on a day of pleasure—the horse-drawn hayride wagon during pumpkin season, when firecrackers spooked the bay horse: a girl killed, the wagon ramming the window of Edna’s grocery, collapsing barrels like a girl’s lungs—and to think it’s just a boating day from the pier, near apple stands, across the vineyard from a rock wall, with miniature monuments of flint. I’ve been thinking that echoes of our stories return to us as blessings, so we tell them once, twice, again, over again—searching—under sycamore, under rain, under twilight blooms for someone to listen.

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Jan Wiezorek writes from Michigan. His debut poetry chapbook, Forests of Woundedness, is forthcoming this fall from Seven Kitchens Press. Wiezorek’s poetry appears, or is forthcoming, in The London Magazine, The Westchester Review, Lucky Jefferson, The Broadkill Review, LEON Literary Review, and elsewhere. He taught writing at St. Augustine College, Chicago, and authored the teachers’ ebook Awesome Art Projects That Spark Super Writing (Scholastic, 2011). Wiezorek’s poetry has been awarded by the Poetry Society of Michigan.