Poems
Crossings
taking the old gimcrack stairs to the cellar I swim down to the burning river and emerge, dripping on a dank stoop. Charon waits there. hoary, wormwood eyes glinting, he clutches his tumid purse. which way? I rasp. Charon considers then with seedy flair he opens a marbled hatch and a dark hand gentles me into an ice-bound vault. in the murk I glimpse Cerberus. he nods and returns to his crossword. five minutes, he grunts. shivered visions flickering I push through fetid gloom to reach the mudworld altar crowded with gelid silver trays, each one laden with a pallid silence. we’re building a bigger one, Charon tells me. closer to the elevator. I think, there should be a blessing, So I open my mouth to tell these scorched souls I will remember driving by a cemetery with my daughter. Is that a cemetery, she asked over the music playing in the car. yes, I said. who are the people buried there, she asked. I don’t know, I said.
Elliott May is a minister and writer living in the Boston area. He can usually be found in a comfortable chair, book and coffee in hand.