Joanell Serra

Making Amends As I pass the smashed fence at the base of the soft hills, pink at twilight, I always think of you. Of course I do. Even when I look away, it’s there, the shattered two by four and tangled wire mess. If got close, could I trace your journey in the ruptured wood? Find the imprint of our shared memories or your bumper on the oak tree that absorbed your impact? I’ve spent hours pondering how to fix that boundary.

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(a poem, by Joanell Serra) (1) on the day that gravity broke kindergarteners laughed waving their arms like blue birds reaching for their swimming goldfish crackers an older boy — almost twelve – recognized the Icarusonian nature of their choice tossed jump-rope lassos to the sky an east village physics professor the first to grasp the new order soaked his shoes in freshly poured cement and strode down Houston Street the neighborhood drug dealer yelled down for help haloed by tiny bags of...