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Edith Goldenhar


Rake

How do you make a moral life? Sophie
writes, and later I head to the garden
with ball of string to save my infant pea
shoots, tying them on rusty wrought iron.
Thank blooming green tulips, thank cilantro
and geraniums in cedar boxes.
I'm stumped. Humility? Among my hunches--
woman kneeling in dirt, anonymous.
But a garden's also good for killing.
These days I prune broken wisteria,
pound snails with a red mallet, rake yellow
thatch off the lawn, almost delirious
because tools cut and shred--my shovel flies.
Soil sweetened with manure, and what dies.




Dig

My love's late wife had a black thumb, thus
I dig and dig, queenly. My compost heap
needs turning: her many sweaters, her brooch
--a dazzling slug in lapis lazuli--
all journals and artwork, pink manicure
case, cosmetics tossed through a bathroom
window. Stop. Throw nothing out. Are we sure
dead is dead? A yellow painting, exhumed
from her studio, hangs behind my desk.
I'm gazing out my window at zinnias,
a single watermelon, and cascades
of yarrow. And sunflowers. Didn't I
hear you, Sue? From wherever you scattered?
When will you bless me? As if it mattered.

































AUTHOR BIO

Edith Goldenhar's poems have appeared or are forthcoming in deCOMP, The Alembic, Whiskey Island, Salamander, Indiana Review, and Laurel Review. As a writer on progressive social change, she has articles and op-eds in such journals as The Stanford Social Innovation Review and The Chronicle of Philanthropy. She lives in Jackson Heights, NY.

POETRY CONTRIBUTORS

Melissa Adamo
Sylvia Ashby
Jane Blanchard
Patricia Bollin
Cathleen Calbert
Maryann Corbett
Eleanor Cory
Casey FitzSimons
Nicole Caruso Garcia
Claudia Gary
Edith Goldenhar
A. J. Huffman
Cambria Jones
Tamam Kahn
Jean L. Kreiling
Fiona Marshall
Holly Painter
Zara Raab
Andrea Witzke Slot
Linda Stern
Anne-Marie Thompson
Doris Watts
Holly Woodward

NEWS

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