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Vo l . 7 N o . 1

Scott Davidson

Recovery Up all night in this comfortless chair standing at your bedside or flattening myself on register grates. Once you’re home I’ll record your meds on the pantry door painted in chalkboard, dote and clean and barely remember discovering the artichoke, Greek-olive secret to making chicken new again. Now what you need is time of your own to fill the space you woke up into freedom to drift, regain your body. Nurses know how to move through your life keeping you tethered. You could never forget I was there. Strange as it feels you need me to do what I’m just understanding. You need me, now, to go home.

Stirling Car Lights and Snowfall, October 2007

Patrick Dixon

Best Effort Flying through time at 70 mph, you, my youngest son, ask, Of anyone who lived, who would you pick to sit with, have a conversation? I can’t choose. Socrates, Jack London, Einstein, Maya Angelou come to mind. Hemingway. Isaac Newton, we both agree, or any of the minds on Cosmos– discuss stars with Galileo or Carl Sagan. Human rights with Rosa Parks. MLK. Gandhi. Overwhelmed, we drive on. Later this evening, it lands: I would talk with family: parents first, then work back. Aren’t they the ones, all foibles and faults, bad choices, bigotry, dishonesty, filled past the brim with errors and meanness; aren’t they the ones to sit across from, with their knowledge now of death and life? Ask them the hard question: What was the most important thing? Hear the answer ring, shattered crystal: You. You were my best effort.

William Wikstrom

Joe Kashi