Supplicant by Sarah Russell

At the Cathedral of St. Anthony,

guardian of the lost,

I light a candle, pray for you --

not because I believe,

but because I am helpless.

Telling you I understand is cheap.

Instead I make a wish, light my worry 

from another worry's flame --

burn wax and wick, my plea 

reduced at last to soot 

in a bed of sand, hoping 

for saint or god or angel's wingspan 

wide enough to shelter flickering souls.

Sarah Russell has returned to poetry after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose.  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Kentucky Review, Misfit Magazine, Red River Review, Ekphrastic Magazine, and Black Poppy Review, among others.  More poems at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com.

Penelope House by Sarah Russell

They're razing a co-op down the street –
not a quick implosion reducing it to dust,
but the slow pecking of crows on a carcass,
the wrecking ball taking time, taking aim,
admiring each swing.
 
For a hundred years, steadfast Penelope
wove new tenants' whims, unraveled for the next,
But Odysseus is a no-show,
and her suitors tired of the game –
the clanking pipes and sometime heat.
 
Now Penelope is ravaged, her fragment rooms exposed –
garish yellows, mud-stained blues,
a scrap or two of curtain catching in the wind
like remnants of a peignoir.
 
I pull my coat close as I pass.
Implosion would be nice, I think,
but I know the wrecking ball's
begun its arc.







Sarah Russell has returned to poetry after a career teaching, writing and editing academic prose. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Kentucky Review, Red River Review, Misfit Magazine, Black Poppy Review and New Verse News, among others. Follow her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com 

Sarah Russell - Augury

I stopped for groceries after work.
Jeff will be late again tonight.
"Don't wait up," he always says.

I hate these country roads at dusk – 
twisting, full of ruts.  I woke
this morning choking back a scream, 
but the dream escaped
with the trembling.

I round a bend, see movement 
in the willows.  Slow, I tell myself.  
It's probably nothing.




Sarah Russell is in metaphor rehab after spending many years teaching, writing and editing academic prose. Her short stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and online venues including Poppy Road Review, The Houseboat, and Misfit Magazine. You can find more of her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com.

Sarah Russell - Hegira

Those dream-filled summer nights, 

a wail, anguished as a banshee,

pierced the rusty screen.

Then the rhythmic clatter grew

until the bed and I would tremble.



Let me come too, I whispered,

but it never heard, 

or didn't understand,

or didn't care about a little girl

and a gallant torn-eared bear.



The rumbling, shaking wraith 

moved on, its cry waning to an echo,

my heartbeat clinging to the cadence

of away from here, away from

here, away.













Sarah Russell is in metaphor rehab after spending many years teaching, writing and editing academic prose. Her short stories and poems have appeared in anthologies and online venues including Poppy Road Review, The Houseboat, and Misfit Magazine. You can find more of her work at www.SarahRussellPoetry.com.