Issue > Poetry

Daniel Lawless

Daniel Lawless recently has published poems in The Louisville Review, Pif, Prick of the Spindle, C4, The Meadow, and elsewhere. He is the founder and editor of PLUME: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry.

"The Gun My Sister Killed Herself With"

Was a cubit long and weighed half as much as an average newborn U.S. baby.

Who sold it to her remains a matter of police conjecture, a "collector," most likely, or a friend in need

Of cash; no receipt ever surfaced. What she did between the time she got it and the act

Adds little to the picture: coffee at McDonalds, a few words exchanged with a balding man in an army

Jacket outside the 7-11 on Broadway, no phone calls, no letter. When my mother got the

News she was hanging sheets to dry on the backyard clothes line; neighbors heard her

Cry two blocks over and thought a cat had died. (Where, exactly, Father spent that afternoon: c.f

Conjecture.) How Irish-pretty she was, pale, petite, kind, smart and slyly funny are duly noted now on

Her birthday, in photographs and little tales that end in tears that end in silence: we the cage

And Rilke's panther pacing there, a thousand bars and beyond the bars no world but why.

Poetry

Alex Greenberg

Alex Greenberg
The Tips Of The Rake

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R.T. Smith

R.T. Smith
The Alteration Of Mistress...

Poetry

Merit O'Hare

Merit O'Hare
One Glove