Jane Medved
Transit
My granddaughter is seven and an accomplished liar. She stole a Swiss Army knife, then pretended to “find” it. She fed her cousin’s goldfish until he died. When forced to confess, she admitted he looked too skinny.
Last night, before I left for the airport, she hid my cellphone in the bushes. As we tore the house apart, she shrugged and went back to sleep.
Seen from above, the clouds are their own kingdom. Nobody wants to join them.
They rule over cold air and shadows, a grid of order then reaction. Their subjects are well behaved.
In Rome, wheels travel the floor. They arrive in pairs. Anticipation. Exhaustion. A little girl cries on concrete.
I am waiting to share my ride with a stranger. I walk up to men. Ask them for their names.
Is wisdom a circle, or a path that wants to repeat?
From above, the clouds are also an old woman. Her softness is an illusion. Her whiteness is the absence of color. Her interest is temporary.
Tonight she’ll be a knife and escape from the box.
And because I love the tree, I’ll ask her to chop my house down first.
Ways of Being Right
after Kim Addonizio
Like thorns that announce the petal.
The erratic kindness, a smattering of good deeds.
A morning destination sunk back into sand.
An eruption of thirst, drown in it.
Sometimes you appear like a far harbor.
Gasping boats swim to you.
Sometimes you are the baggage unclaimed.
The reassuring whir, a repetition that can only be mechanical.
You fall asleep missing the company of crickets.
Their mating songs calm you.
The abandoned attraction.
You check your reflection. Are you window or mirror?
That time you were yourself.
That time it was suddenly past midnight.
That time you resembled the exotic.
The smoke and the aftertaste, the scratchy respite at the back of your throat.
And, once a month, a bright penny of moon.
Be gracious, nobody else cares.
Jane Medved is the author of Wayfarers (Winner of the Off the Grid Prize, Grid Books 2024), Deep Calls To Deep (winner of the Many Voices Project, New Rivers Press) and the chapbook Olam, Shana, Nefesh (Finishing Line Press). Her translation of Wherever We Float, That’s Home (by Maya Tevet Dayan, Saturnalia Books) won the Malinda A. Markham Translation Prize 2024. Recent work can be seen or is forthcoming in Plume, Swwim, River Heron Review, Ruminate, and Bending Genres. She is the poetry editor of The Ilanot Review. Visit her at janemedved.net
