Poetry by Kelly Fordon

minka CC




RUPTURE
 
Along the river soon comes the sound,
the sinew, the meat, the carrion, rupture.
 
No heart that beats, no bench erected,
no peace on earth we cannot rupture.
 
High water rises above toe and crag, a man
with one branch swings from the rupture.
 
The pack assembles, all glossy and hip,
another spin round the epic rupture.
 
Try alum, try yellow dock, try nettle, and
yarrow, no petal will stay the pending rupture.
 
No staving the swell, no middle lane.
Some sways sanction each new rupture.
 
The hemorrhage, the glut, the certain slug,
lacerated, punctured, broken, ruptured.
 
Breach of my love, breach of my heart,
Who has not felt the brunt of rupture?
 
The guard, the grip, the spring, the lever,
just say it straight—each shot seeks rupture.





They Don’t Come Back 

I heard a siren and wondered whose next? 
The lunch lady killed crossing the street. 
This somnambulant town filled with peril.
One friend moved away and promptly died. 
I feel the urge to rhyme to stave off sadness,
They don’t come back. They don’t come back.
My father in his gray suit and my other love
who drank himself to death. When people leave 
They don’t come back. They don’t come back.
I’m doing it again; I wish this was a jingle.
Something to crochet and hang upon the wall.
A pithy epithet, a couplet, words to sooth,
herbal tea. At home on the couch, day bleeds in
to night, it’s time for prayer or not. Either way…

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Kelly Fordon’s latest short story collection  I Have the Answer (Wayne State University Press, 2020) was chosen as a Midwest Book Award Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist. Her 2016 Michigan Notable Book, Garden for the Blind, (WSUP), was an INDIEFAB Finalist, a Midwest Book Award Finalist, Eric Hoffer Finalist, and an IPPY Awards Bronze Medalist. Her first full-length poetry collection, Goodbye Toothless House, (Kattywompus Press, 2019) was an Eyelands International Prize Finalist and an Eric Hoffer Finalist and was adapted into a play, written by Robin Martin, which was published in The Kenyon Review Online.  She is the author of three award-winning poetry chapbooks and has received a Best of the Net Award and Pushcart Prize nominations in three different genres. She teaches at Springfed Arts and The InsideOut Literary Arts Project in Detroit, as well as online, where she also runs a monthly poetry and fiction blog. www.kellyfordon.com