Poetry by Joanne Pfleiderer

     Tim Vrtiska CC




Genetic Sorrow
with apologies to John Updike

My mother called it Slavic pain,
the upshot of demons and trauma. 
We’ve had our share. 

One jumped off the roof.
A circus man, he thought he could fly.
That’s what they said anyway.

Another left early lacking medicine.
It was wartime.
His heart couldn’t take it.

Gunshots didn’t kill a third,
but his five minutes of fame did land him on the front page.
Later he drove a hot shot deep into his arm, the grey death.

Then there was the hopeful one 
whose dim candle burned 
weakly and then out.

And the man, a young husband and father, 
left alone to stroke out in the emergency room.
Just like that.

I saw everything in the dark once 
burning my own brief candle.

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Joanne Pfleiderer is a poet and writer whose work has been published in Leevz, Edacra, The Florida Bards Anthology, and other outlets. She was recently honored to be a finalist in the Turus d’Anam Samhain poetry contest.
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