"Flattened," "December," and "February, 2017"
Flattened
He’s come to hate the academy, its sterile rigors.
Steel rails, parallel; long ribbon of wooden ties:
all night, all day, trains rattle that whole apparatus.
He lays his poem anthology on the track.
December
Holly bushes buried by two feet of snow.
On the sidewalk, shoveling, he uncovers a child’s
mitten. In half-light, he holds it up—red, green, tiny.
He pockets it, shovels and thinks. Maybe the lost one
is safe, at home. Or the child is one-armed, maimed.
Or, under all this whiteness, is lying cold, alone.
February, 2017
Always she goes, carrying her album: Photos
of the Future.
But back at home, uneasy,
he wanders room to room.
She tells him, “Stop
looking, but not searching. Wait for Time to
return, and for the wave to break at our door.”

Joel Chace has published work in print and electronic magazines such as, Tip of the Knife, Eratio, Otoliths, Word For/Word, and Golden Handcuffs Review. Most recent collections include Humors, from Paloma Press, Threnodies, from Moria Books, and fata morgana, from Unlikely Books. Joel recommends supporting locofo chapbooks.