Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 1, is now online. Enjoy new poems by Maria Sanz (translated by Lola Hidalgo-Calle and Mark Putnam), Tim Cresswell, M.K. Foster, Colin Schmidt, Yehoshua November, LeRoy Sorensen, Yuko Taniguchi, Ben Debus, Mary Moore, Elijah Burrell, Charles Harper Webb, Amorak Huey, Allison Joseph, Cassandra Cleghorn, Jennifer Highland, Danielle Mitchell, Michael Hurley, Judy Kronenefeld, Amanda Doster, Laurie Klein, Daryl Jones, T.J. Sandella, Janet Hagelgans, Doug Ramspeck, Jennifer Bullis, Tina Richardson, Lynn Schmeidler. With reviews of Ada Limon and Kristina Marie Darling by Dave Seter and Donna Vorreyer.
Tag Archives: T.J. Sandella
Revelation
by T.J. Sandella
One of those still, grey days,
as if to whisper winter.
If there is a god
and he’s still around,
this is surely how he mourns.
I’d prefer something more extravagant—a plague,
a flood to wash away memory.
Wasn’t that Noah’s curse?
To remember?
Wasn’t that the point of all that water?
A forced baptism? A way for god to forget
his disappointments?
But I’m the stubborn child that won’t bathe—the one
mothers must pin down and scrub clean.
I’m the one who holds on to everything.
~ ~
Down at the bar, rosy-cheeked men and women
toast frosted glasses, and I imagine they filed in
two-by-two, the ting of a bell to announce their salvation.
But I’ve never been any good
at forgiveness, and a rainbow
is a half-hearted apology.
Whatever mistakes he’s made,
he’ll make again.
On an afternoon as still as this, we can be certain
nothing will ever change: god’s whims,
this nagging absence—
every day, someone celebrating.
Published in Cider Press Review, Volume 18, Issue 1.
T.J. Sandella is the recipient of an Elinor Benedict Prize for Poetry, a William Matthews Poetry Prize, two Academy of American Poets Prizes, and a Pushcart Prize nomination. He lives with his puppy, Rufio, in Cleveland, Ohio, where he’s a soapbox spokesman for the Rust Belt’s revitalization.
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