Charon

Just once I'd like to come ashore,
unclasp my cowl, lay down my oar

and sit a bit; to laze and lounge,
to rest my bones on solid ground.

Perhaps I'd read a little. No.
A soul steps up and time to go.

I take the coin. My skiff weaves through
the shrouds of grass choking the slough

and out onto the stagnant river.
The surface is an onyx mirror

where navigation leaves no wake.
There are times I try to make

some small talk, ask about their lives;
but mostly they are dull or silent

and I can smell their brooding hate.
They blame me for the work of Fate.

Blame me! Can you imagine that?
As if I were the frightened cat

they saw too late and swerved to miss,
casting them down a black abyss,

or Time's unkind parentheses
that clamped their starving arteries.

I'm just a pawn, a hired hand,
a conduit from land to land

that spends eternity traversing.
But since you're here and we're conversing:

Take heart to what I say, my friend.
Before I guide you to your end,

attempt to make a grand connection.
Become an object of affection.

Fall in love and try to be
an Orpheus, Eurydice;

a Dante or a Beatrice.
I long to see the same face twice.

by Brian Dion

Brian Dion's work has been published in The Grolier Poetry Prize Annual, The Raintown Review, and across the Atlantic in Candelabrum, as well as several on-line publications. He was recently nominated for a 2007 Pushcart Prize. Brian is active in local community theater and won a best supporting actor award at the 2007 EMACT Drama Festival. He lives by the banks of the Saugus River with his wife and daughter, who permit him to be "a joyful participant in the sorrows of the world".

"Crab Apple" by Fee Robson Copyright 2007

Tanka

The piano sings,
drops notes like communion bread
onto your tongue, light
and melting, soft to the touch
yet solid, bone under flesh.

by Kris Bigalk

Kris Bigalk's poetry has appeared in The Mankato Poetry Review and Loonfeather. She teaches creative writing at Normandale Community College in Bloomington, Minnesota.