Linda Lerner

The Day Before

an unlikely New York City calm
takes hold of me in Los Angeles on landing
raining so hard the day I left and
not knowing though fearing what never happened
marvel at what did

flooding worries, the rest, gone
bridges and roads to them temporarily blocked
as in a storm, so unexpected

a friend from San Antonio writes
about one still a ways from where she lives
but close enough…
flood waters keep rising, she writes, homes drifting
out of lives, a place where someone loses someone forever;
I've never been to Texas, but I've been to that place
and know, this day, any day, could be
the day before Texas

 

Linda Lerner's latest collection is Takes Guts & Years Sometimes (New York Quarterly Books, June, 2011). She’s previously published thirteen collections of poetry and been nominated twice for a pushcart prize. Her poems have recently appeared in New Verse News, Gutter Eloquence, The Brooklyn Voice, Danse Macabre, Two Bridges, was the featured poet in Presa, Fall 2011, Lummox, Home Planet News and The Mom Egg. Her latest book is Ding Dong the Pussy in the Well (Lummox).