Marilynn J. Rudi
Shelter
Not far from the sheltered workshop
where damaged men make sturdy wooden furniture
I walk daily, past smoke stacks and neon signs,
fields of pavement, train tracks, chain link fences.
If I see him, my day heartens.
He is about my age and neatly dressed,
although his jacket may be flapping in the breeze.
In one hand, a blue lunchbox firmly held.
He races down the sidewalk,
body pitched forward, as if crossing unsafe territory.
His eyes are cast down,
his face askew, a crookedness
in his features his off-
balanced gait reflects.
A few steps on and he stops,
stoops to pick up an object,
slowly turns it over in his hands, pockets it,
then resumes his break-neck pace.
I imagine him home
with the one who dresses him so smartly,
packs his lunch, and waits
patiently for his return,
when he will empty
his pockets to show the pretty treasures
from the wasteland.
Page(s) 304
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The