The Speed of Light • Allan Peterson

Despite its reputation that nothing exceed it,
it lingers on the pond,
leaves only reluctantly from the nervous
silvery cottonwoods
gathered at the edge like a camping family.
But once vanished,
it stays out all night in another galaxy
leaving breadcrumbs to get back.
That's nothing.
I can be here one minute where the strings
of the driveway
are purposely united during daylight,
then to Jupiter and back
where one harebell starts the yard in its frenzy
of reexplaining.
What takes its place appears lovingly
like caressing a pet,
a Lab starting black and ending golden
as we float in our bodies
of blood and rubble so rich we'll hardly miss it,
a song at the end instead of a period

Not Mine to Remember • R.T. Castleberry

Beneath a low, country moon
the dying say their rosaries
in the shade of the Cathedral Constantine.
Their fingers slip the wooden beads like whispers.
I move between them,
steps echoed in marble, slate, cobblestone.
I don't know their fears-
when they came, why they lasted,
why they fall silent in the seconds
clouds conceal the streets.
Not a native son,
I'm the wrong listener.
I'm unmoved by each season here-
by intricacies of ceremony,
the strictures of public celebration.
Newspapers fill columns
with casino totals, racetrack results.
The poor are pictured as laughing crowds
in the Summer Garden cinema.
Market stalls are full.
Sleepless, smoking again
I track the dodging line of early runners,
the gloomy stride of schoolchildren.
Burdened by misdirection
and the mistakes of my arrival,
I miss what water misses.