Ode on a Lost Work by Corri Sheff 

A word to the afflicted—that painting’s best

For thinking on that’s lost. Fifty chick flicks

Ago, her canvas (in the subjunctive mood)

Began to speak. A shayna maidel’s trousseau

Was on display in the late morning light

Of early summer, and at its mother’s breast

Was death. Maturity’s best features transfix

And ransack the will—mine’s never so good

That I’d tear that wicked peace to shreds. Although,

Respect did flower from no ground and right

In the direction of no sun; prepossessed

By purity and rain, the candlesticks

Reflected her uprightness. In a flood

Of candidates from the warmest blue we know,

She drew herself and gave the mirror sight

For me. (These veins are my chains!) A dresser stood

Before it, finished and unframed; too slow

We learned that heavens are wrecked by a doggy’s bite. 

In Memory of Florence Berger Sheff (1918 – 1963)

Doowop and tragedy were all the rage

In nineteen sixty-three. What lives is soon

To mourn, and genius begets commentary—

Like dewdrops on an octavo, one’s éclat 

Can turn a year into a gewgaw. Rain,

That patroness of the arts, broke every gauge

And then some when you left. Like a monsoon

Of the soul and a mental haboob to a weary-

And-getting-wearier country was the raw

And public way each heart had to rack its brain

In nineteen sixty-three. We seldom wage

A war against the stars, but even the moon

Suspected that the sun had beriberi—

How else explain that summer’s churlish maw?

When all of history’s a seed again,

I’ll wait with you for time’s forgotten ferry. 

We’ll wonder if forgiveness was the last straw

While innocence gives joy to the inane. 

Walla Walla Packs a Wallop

“It's terribly depressing to discover some quite worthless person blithely reciting a poem that you yourself had particularly liked and carefully copied down in a notebook.” – Sei Shōnagon, The Pillow Book

What prompted my immunity

To roussane’s naughty wisdom? Not

The busboys on East Sumach Street,

With their pudgy eyes and stomachs

Full of empty thoughts. They would be

What prompted my impunity

When it came to busybodies

That have met my two five-fingered

Equiponderators. Ethics

And nutrition can’t decide if

What prompted my imp (unity

Hates him!) was my rodomontade

Or something I ate. I could count 

On one finger the number of

Gods I could count on back then, which

Promoted my immunity.