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In the Rabbit Hour
by Linda Umans
Nibbling
Pale yellow light
Flecked illusory
Death off the shoulder
By daily dying…
I pass through the window
and roam Pennsylvania
(The ticket holds my seat)
Grass still warm
Geese settling
Come to be…
Linda Umans enjoyed a long teaching career in the NYC public schools. She is a native of Manhattan where she lives, studies, and writes. Recent publications include poems in qarrtsiluni, YB, Terrain.org, The Broome Street Review, The Ghazal Page, Status Hat, Switched-on Gutenberg and a piece in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.
Wishful
by Linda Umans
I want my comfort in an orange night
where the heat stays later than you might expect.
I don’t want to dream of coastal living
with a man who would have gotten me drowned.
I want to live in the art world where medicine’s an art.
I want to ride the centrifuge and know the whirling cells.
I am perennial and stand with irises
border of iridescence reliable as squash.
I would choose biennial as beets as winter wheat
for the appeal of slow for the drama of the bloom.
I want to be your life preserver but not your life.
I don’t want to leave but love you anyway.
Linda Umans enjoyed a long teaching career in the NYC public schools. She is a native of Manhattan where she lives, studies, and writes. Recent publications include poems in qarrtsiluni, YB, Terrain.org, The Broome Street Review, The Ghazal Page, Status Hat, Switched-on Gutenberg and a piece in Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.
Blanche at Rest
by Linda Umans
(After Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams)
I’m partial to shades of cucumber
(lush when the need arises)
and my gentle helper
this boy with the sweet chest
he will live in my cast of memories.
I caught sight of her in the long mirror
as we came through Admissions
all floral and light.
Diaphanous woman, I said to Carly
but Carly said no.
She is a boulder
even if you can see her shoulderblades.
I’ve survived my murder
no family allowed, therefore.
No need to mention names
next-of-kin and paramour not welcome.
(Save us from our sisters.)
Temporary temporal
whereafter unknown
rootless now although
no longer homeless.
Transition acclimation
I feel re-creation here.
Linda Umans enjoyed a long teaching career in the NYC public schools. She is an ardent traveler and a native of Manhattan where she lives, studies, writes. Recent and upcoming publications include poems in Beauty/Truth: Journal of Ekphrastic Poetry, Waterways, Terrain.org, The Broome Street Review and Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood.
For Tom W.—Eyes Only
by Linda Umans
I never identified with the straight back L
or the manuscript loops too girly maybe
(I’m way more loopy now)
the erectile i was a better fit
definite and pointing away
hanging on the dromedary n
riding slow rhythmic
the d dropped stomach about to birth
(the late births knock me out)
enclosed sometimes pampered in the space of the a
a place for a round girl to curl
the open-topped U a way up and out but challenging
the m a human purr
another a when I need it again
the n this time connecting to the final s
my sign in China
an all-time hissing favorite.
I’d like my ashes
carried to the ocean
in Townes’ flying shoes (you know)
(I’ve imagined it already
been there already
so if it’s inconvenient…)
my true remains are yours.
by Linda Umans
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Linda Umans has had work published on- and off-line, recently in Beauty/Truth: Journal of Ekphrastic Poetry, Mr. Beller’s Neighborhood, Big Apple Short Radio Drama Festival and upcoming in Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments. She is a traveler but a native of New York City where she lives and works.
qarrtsiluni 