Poet’s Garden
by Sally Nacker
artwork by Mary Lou Bierman

 

 

When you are driving on a dark night
by Ivy Hoffman 

Do you see it?
Good.
You have passed it now.
That was your moment,
It will not come again.

 

 

Ballyvaughan
by Brendan Sullivan
photograph by author

On my honeymoon in a relatively empty part of Ireland I see a teen in a hoodie walking along the quay, looking down at his feet and ignoring the quiet untroubled water.

I am giddy in this country, which I think of as green even though it’s the end of October and for the most part any color bleeds out under the intensely gray sky. I’m doing that thing where, when you travel, you say “I could live here, really, I absolutely could.”

My new wife and I eat lunch at a lovely bar by the bay, order something in a stew with some black bread, and watch that kid kick loose gravel into the water by the fishing boats.

 

–

Sally Nacker (MFA, Fairfield University) was a recipient of the Edwin Way Teal Writer-in-Residence award, summer, 2020. Her new book, Kindness in Winter, is due out April, 2021. Please visit her website at www.sallynacker.com

 

Ivy Hoffman is a high school sophomore who began to write in the third grade when she discovered her passion for poetry. She’s been writing ever since, and this will be her first publication.

 

Brendan Sullivan lives in the woods.