ISSUE TWELVE | SPRING 2019
The Painter
In our town
There was an older man
Who loved to paint to all day.
He lived off his pension;
His wife of fifty years
Had died of asbestos.
He set out
To paint a little portrait
Of everyone in our town (1,000 people) –
And each of us happy to sit
For an afternoon with him.
Neighbors asked:
“What are the chances he gets
Through all 1,000 of us,
And reaches this goal of his
Before he dies?
(He’s pretty old, you know)…”
Don’t you cry, dear
He only painted three-hundred five
Before he passed away.
The goal was a thin veneer –
A handsome excuse for the aimless man
To spend less time alone.
“Little” Sadie Wayne Schwartz (on Her Rumspringa)
When she bled out in the barn
Mice came and drank from her arm,
While the calves dream
And the countryside sleeps.
In a cornfield,
On a back-road,
In a fly-over state.
And the rockets
In the rainclouds
Light the eyes of an owl.
And the smell of
Asbestos
(The iron and mold),
And a family
Of herons
Flies numb through the cold.
How a life here –
Like a pebble –
Weighs nothing at all,
At the nipple
Of a black sheep
In the vagabond Fall.
Abram Indiana (on His Rumspringa)
When I’m free,
When I leave the city…
When I’m free,
Then (!) I’ll wake up early:
I’ll tend the rocky fields on the hill,
I’ll serve the basil in my windowsill.
When I’m free,
Swatting at the horse fly…
When I’m free,
And with tears in my eyes:
I’ll sit and watch my grandma Winifred;
I’ll sit and watch her baking raisin bread.
PJ Sauerteig earned his BA in Creative Writing at Columbia University, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2016. He releases music as Slow Dakota through his small record label, Massif Records. Sauerteig is currently finishing up his JD at NYU.
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