Issue > Poetry

Mike Lewis-Beck

Mike Lewis-Beck writes and works in Iowa City. He has pieces in Fox Cry Review, The Cortland Review, Chariton Review, Iowa Review, Seminary Ridge Review and Wapsipinicon Almanac among other venues. His short story "Delivery in Goteborg" received a finalist prize from Chariton Review, 2015. His essay "My Cherry Orchard in Iowa" received recognition as one of the Notable Essays in The Best American Essays 2011.

Last Supper

When Hemingway hopped out a cab at Momo
to catch a look at his Picasso
he kept the cab waiting.

When I popped in Santa Maria delle Grazia
this evening, to get out of the rain,
I left no cab waiting

and failed to look at Leonardo's Last Supper.
Now I'm boiling her bucatini—waiting—
wondering if this will be it

The Lute Shop

just off Piazza Carlo Alberto
pours low light out a high palazzo.

Windows wide, all can see fingers glide,
slide smooth along spent strings of broken basses.

Pomaded, a new Paganini shoulders
his violin, sighting it like an archer.

This crafting, in ones and twos, its own art.