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The Good News 

Imagine—
Someone you’ve never heard of died,
someone of importance, an ambassador,
a member of Council, a shipping magnate,
an advisor to the King. 

This stranger was traveling in a hurry—
a yacht, a private plane,           
a helicopter spiraling the islands,
a limousine aimed at treacherous hills
to a shining resort 

and met with a terrible fate. 

Such largesse in tragedy!
Euros, rupees, golden coins,
a heap of green bills,
and they asked specifically for you,
one honest soul in the electrified wilderness. 

Across the globe’s worried patchwork
of brightly colored territories,
through the tangle of wires and war-torn trees,

it gives you a start (never mind the cost
of transfer fees). 

The Good News singing on the luminous screen--
you can feel it in your heart: all is not lost.

The Guest 

In every room she enters
paint cracks on the walls
light bulbs blink and burst
like collapsing stars.
Her limbs bend
into tormented origami,
a theater of stunned statuary. 

Did we invite her? someone whispers.
They worry for the trusting hands 
of plants reaching from pottery.
Where’s the cat? The dog?
Are the children asleep?  

Every space she occupies
swells and contracts.
Family photographs
tremble on their nails,
the faces stilled in suspense.
Do we know you? they ask with their eyes. 

Whose voice is it that rides the air
like a shredded ribbon
caught in a fan?
She calms, she sits, she smoothes
the coiled scarf around her neck.
She checks her watch; it’s almost time to go--
it’s just not fair. 

I’m not sure how she got here.
(Did anyone see her leave?)
The music dissolves, the crumbs
are cleared. The glaze of liquor
burns the lipstick from her glass
and disappears.

In Transit  

She was anchored
on the sidewalk,
her face eclipsed by
the back of his head
as they stood together,
his body turning
toward the curb,
his right foot already

in the street
its sole
inches from cigarette ash
that a funnel of air
churned and let go--
her arm still around
his neck, their faces
close but barely touching
a kiss either coming
or ending
when I drove past them
never to learn
whether he delayed and
missed the light or
whether she stayed
and watched him cross
to the other side
as I was pulled into
the burning mouth
of the Holland Tunnel.





Copyright 2007, Mindy Kronenberg. © This work is protected under the U.S. copyright laws. It may not be reproduced, reprinted, reused, or altered without the expressed written permission of the author.



Mindy Kronenberg's poems have appeared in more than 300 publications form around the world. She teaches writing and literature at SUNY and through Poets & Writers programs in the community. Kronenberg is the editor of Book/Mark Quarterly Review and the author of Dismantling the Playground.