Insomnia

Insomnia

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

Eyes squeezed shut, you watch a mangled newsreel of your life.  

The floor rumbles.  Something has unearthed the earth,

a great exhalation as if the whole world has breathed out.

The dog pricks up her ears, paces the bare floors,

her nails a metronome - click-click, click-click,

from twelve to two o’clock, when the bear 

of darkness crawls from its cave.

Drowsy, you plod to the porch,

where the dog has led you.

She stands, a statue peering out.

In the stillness you expect something 

to blast across the lawn - a coyote

with a bloody rabbit in its jaws, a burglar

with your jewelry in his burlap bag, or worse. 

Wide awake till dawn you rock in the wicker chair 

watching the black holes between the hostas and ferns.  

You can deal with a coyote or burglar, but not with your life.

~ first published in Willow Review

The Mourning Dove

artwork: ralph murre

The Mourning Dove

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

Exists on half a ration -- the charity of sparrows'

seed dropped beneath the feeder

where she nestles in the grass,

stretching her wings.

Even a nudge from the old dog's nose

or a launching pad of my cupped hands

does not make her fly, only skim the ground

before returning to the hollow she created.

Why has she stayed, these long days,

repeating her same sad coo,

risking hunter hawk or cat

when she could fly away?

What keeps her from taking

that one grand liftoff

before winter's white hand grips her

and all she can do is look afar

to the place she might have reached a long time ago

and her eyes close under the weight of snow?

~ first published in Moon Journal

A Pair of Shoes

photoart: ralph murre

A Pair of Shoes

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

In an alley lined with dumpsters

where only rats want to forage

stands a pair of shoes--

men's, crow-black and shiny,

slightly creased as if worn only once.

Not discarded on their sides

but upright, as far apart

as the man who wore them

might have stood.

Yet, who, no matter how foolhardy

after a night on the town,

who would run shoeless down this gangway

of stones and broken glass?

Not that I abhor the waste,

but the sight of them, like broken birds,

makes me fear

something bad has happened.

Maybe no one is missing,

but someone watching

behind the curtain of a high window,

camera on the sill waiting to shoot

a film noir of the passer-by

who stops, examines the soles,

tries them on and wobbles off like Chaplin.

Someone who looks around first

as if a bomb might go off.

~ first published in After Hours

Drought

photo: ralph murre

Drought

by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

When I was a child, a greenhouse seemed exotic--

poinsettias peering out at snow.

Easter lilies white as wedding gowns.

glass mysterious with the breath of plants.

Now, we all live in one,

the sun a giant gro-light,

the air a maze of halogen.

No pounding on the glass will set us free.

Someday from the lemur-eyes of gas masks,

we will see faint outlines of our ghosts --

lisping breath of proboscis-hoses.

Stunted corn will be plowed under

for wheat fields that do not germinate.

Shriveled leaves will blanket the ground

white as drifts of snow

that once held the prints of angels.

Sleds will hang on museum walls,

children's ice skates rest behind glass.

If science concocts a giant mirror, pale antidote

to deflect sun, will it crack like a glacier?

Children, ask grandpa, when you gather at his knee,

to tell you about when there were birds

who rode on air you couldn't see.

~ previously published in Earth First!

STONE

photoart: sharon auberle

Stone
by Constance Vogel Adamkiewicz

Beside a marker in the park
a fallen plastic champagne flute, empty
vase of dented brass, a cherub
propped up on her elbows, smiling
at the granite day.

Before the last lamppost
where the winding path divides,
I turn into a nearby woods--
a circle of buckthorn, thicket and oaks
bordered by a river branch,
a place where symbols
are carved on trees,
a sweatshirt once hung upon a cross,
a handgun box jumped in the wind.

I wonder if a sudden parting
...of the water,
a sun ray through the thatch
will tell me where you went
...and why so soon.
But the river flows as always, confusing
the path,, the snowmelt and sticks.
White lichen clings to tree bark
like clues in a treasure hunt.

When I reach the circle's end,
the still-empty glass and the battered vase,
the cherub smiles like a discount statue
...in an outdoor marketplace,
its chiseled eyeballs staring hard as stone.

~ previously published in The Mulberry (Finishing Line Press)