By: Claire Scott We hold our dead hostage Squeezing every memory Every story every feeling As though they were oranges With eternal juice Keeping faded photos Old diaries– ways to keep Them more alive than dead Keep them hovering Listening to…

By: Claire Scott The past cancels the present Closing doors and windows With clicks and slams Circling and circling In a closed space The continuous curve Of a mobius strip The past sucking possibility Eating our present minute by minute Hour…

By: Claire Scott I live inside parentheses My home since I was six At night I gently lift one Or the other and slip out Tentative, tactful Not upsetting syntax Not capsizing capital letters Or kicking commas To the foot of…

By: Claire Scott the other day wearinga heavy overcoattall rubber bootsa plaid scarf wrappinghis heavenly neckcoughing, his voice nasal fromscotch and cigaretteslooking slightly stoutlooking slightly bentstubble on his divine cheeksoccasional nose picking a bit grouchy, complaints ofstuck bowels, arthritic knees he…

By: Claire Scott Every Sunday my mother serves burnt lima beans doused in bitterness and butter. Her special recipe. We tumble in from church where my father sings Bach in the filtered light of stained glass saints. Us kids in…