sunday afternoon: an uncertain future growing from the ashes of the past
by john sweet


it's always this time
somewhere

six years
after the death of a father

after the naming of
a generation so fucking useless
i want no part of it

letters from men telling me
my son doesn't stand
a chance

silence from anyone
i ever called friend

and there is a need for beauty
yes
but not for blindness

there are the bodies of
two sixteen year-old girls
forever screaming in the woods
only thirty minutes from
my front door

and i am not looking to
grow as a poet
i am only hoping to survive
as a human being

lorca
i think
would understand this

there are soldiers right now
in countries without histories
chopping off the hands
of small children

cutting out their tongues
and raping their mothers while
i stand in my kitchen watching
the first snow of the
season

while i worry over
my own pale problems
and the fact that i'm no longer
young and not yet old

the fact that my car
probably won't make it
through another winter

the possibility of escape
no longer mentioned






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