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.

back to issue

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