My brother runs down
His mother went alone to the marshes
dropped her tears into Phragmites and Cattails
Her youngest son
She heard the ticking
Although the clock by his bedside had stopped
She, paralyzed
the fuse sparking
Watched him run up, then down the stairs,
I’m not going…
Then up again then
a single shot
I don’t know what happens when a bomb
But an eruption through him
That gun he’d got for hunting
a twelfth birthday gift
Our lives blown out from its center
I was not permitted to look
While police asked questions
Young lieutenant paced the backyard
Fit savage kicks to a bicycle
I watched, wheels, ticking
By Jean Anne Feldeisen
Biography:
Jean Anne Feldeisen is a former resident of New Jersey, now living on a farm in Maine. At age 72, she had her first poem published in Spank the Carp in 2021, then several more in The Hopper and The Raven’s Perch, Thimble Literary Magazine, and other online publications. Her first chapbook, Not All Are Weeping, was released in 2023 by Main Street Rag Publishing. Poetry is an especially important mouthpiece for Jean Anne in her seventies and she hopes she can use her perspective as an elder to help herself and others understand, manage, and maybe even fall in love with their lives.