Featured Poems
Walk from the Subway at Prospect Park
Rising from the train
I see your coat mud-streaked and stained
eyes haunted by a distant past.
You speak in tongues.
Beside you a ragged mutt reclines,
the animal a sponge for your oration.
I pass by you in silence
studying the pavement,
looking anywhere
but
at
you.
Susan Schwartz Twiggs, Marshfield
2018 Bards Against Hunger, Moss Piglet, 2023
Leonardo Ponders the Mona Lisa
Wrapped in muslin, bound with twine,
protected in a sealed trunk.
Carted over rutted paths—
Milan, Florence, Rome,
at last, the chateau in Amboise.
The painting leans on an easel,
a commission never delivered,
no coin exchanged.
Sitting by the window,
the artist contemplates,
certain another layer of glaze
will render it perfect.
The colors will blend,
leaving no trace
of the multiple layers.
Leonardo pauses for inspiration.
Are her eyes the perfect green?
The folds of her silk dress,
do they fall just so?
And her smile, should he
part her lips ever so slightly?
Susan Schwartz Twiggs
Cricket magazine, 2023
