By Matthew J. Spireng
Featured Art: Village Street by Alice Pike Barney
This time, giving directions to a place
I have never been, an address
I have only passed so I could tell another where
it is, I have explained: across the street from,
a few blocks down from, between this
cross street and that, a little yellow awning
across the front, the name in big letters above it,
and if it is dark, will there be
light on the awning, or will its color be gone,
indeterminate? Tell me, will you, if I arrive
first and find a better way to describe, how
can I reach you, or must the first suffice?
Matthew J. Spireng’s 2019 Sinclair Prize-winning book Good Work was published in 2020 by Evening Street Press. A 10-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is also author of the full-length poetry books, What Focus Is and Out of Body, winner of the 2004 Bluestem Poetry Award.
Originally published in Issue 19.
