I
It was our next-door neighbor lying
on his tongue, an open eye staining
the rug where a dime-sized pill
sat trapped in its vial.
My pulse screamed for two
as I wiped blood from his lips
and pumped him for the ambulance,
blowing into death with all the heat
a body gives away. I pushed,
punched and tried to get it back
as if the corpse were a thief.
II
It is midnight in a motel room,
as if distance could bring peace.
My wife is asleep; I sit at the desk.
Outside the wind flows over
the Shenandoah Mountain,
certain to outlive us all.
If we had never met the neighbor
we would be home asleep.
In the mirror blood behind my face
waits like light hiding in candles.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 27, Issue 4.
Gary Stein lives in Maryland where he and his wife raised two sons. His full-length collection, Touring The Shadow Factory (Black Road Poetry Press, July 2019) won first prize in the publishers’ national contest. His chapbooks, Between Worlds and Getting To Heaven (Finishing Line Press) have been highly praised. Other poems have appeared in journals including Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Poet Lore, JAMA, Penn Review, Commonweal, America, and The Atlanta Review. Stein co-edited Cabin Fever, a poetry anthology (The Word Works, 2004), served as Book Review Editor for Poet Lore, holds an MFA from the University of Iowa, and taught Creative Writing in colleges and high schools.
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