Iowa City, June 2008
A smoke stack with warning lights.
Beneath the clouds.
A refrigerator emptied of all, but medications.
Beneath the clouds.
A homeless man, dovening on the flooded street.
His voice, a howl in a tunnel.
Fork lifts scoop up the gravel. The hotel room,
swampy, the telephone cold.
A morning of hoisting sandbags. I left your photos
safe in California. Beneath the clouds.
Joan E. Bauer is the author of The Almost Sound of Drowning (Main Street Rag, 2008). For some years, she was a teacher and counselor and now divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-hosts and curates the Hemingway's Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins. Her second full-length collection, The Camera Artist, is forthcoming from Turning Point in February 2021. You can follow her on Twitter: @Joan_E_Bauer