Poetry by Deirdre Fagan

            ​Mike Maguire CC



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River among the Gravel
 
The dog is listless and the sky nothing but clouds.
The kettle is on the stove but not boiling.
 
Yesterday’s rain formed a river among the gravel  
snaking towards the road.  The skylights splashed with lightning.
 
The last time we saw each other you 
were going through airport security. 
 
Your looming body lumbering among those 
half a foot below. 
 
You looked like a fish out of water, 
a man without a future. 
 
The Eagles said there was a shimmering light 
on a dark highway, but its nearly all pines here 
 
and what’s left of the leaves below is
tattered by gypsy moths.
 
The suet is swinging, waiting for, 
or having just said goodbye to 
 
the pileated and oh, how you would laugh, 
if you were here. 
 
A bird nearly as big as you, 
in birds anyway, 
 
and with a laugh something like yours, 
high and bright, but also a bit off, 
 
a recognition, perhaps, that something 
was never quite right. 
 
The rain can be torrential, even in the desert, 
and the ground covered is more than we ever want to know. 
 
Best to light the flame, listen for the heat, and let go.

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Deirdre Fagan is a widow, wife, mother of two, and associate professor and coordinator of creative writing in the English, Literature, and World Languages Department at Ferris State University. Fagan is the author of the forthcoming memoir, Find a Place for Me, Pact Press (2022), a collection of short stories, The Grief Eater, Adelaide Books (2020), a chapbook of poetry, Have Love, Finishing Line Press (2019), and a reference book, Critical Companion to Robert Frost, Facts on File (2007). She is a poetry Pushcart nominee and her poem “Outside In” was a Best of the Net finalist in 2018. Fagan is the poetry editor for Orange Blossom Review and has also written academic essays on poetry, memoir, and pedagogy. Meet her at deirdrefagan.com

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