She said
you're breaking my heart
as though
it was a small twig which
stepped upon
splinters with a small pop
pieces flying
in opposition, lost on the forest floor
waiting patiently
for the next errant step
to further
subdivide until the bits
are indistinguishable
and slowly rot into the soil.
I said
my emotions are running away
as though
they strapped on Saucony's
and fled
into the night, dodging
among trees
until they grow ever smaller
quickly receding
into the all engulfing void


A Message Home

What I want to tell her is this:
it's fitting, perfectly, that you
who so assiduously hid the past
from me, your past and mine,
now bars your entry, refusing you
even the briefest glimpse.
You want so to grab onto it
to have it carry you to a place
removed from here by time
and distance, where it is warm
and most of the time, cozy.
It is also fitting that you
call out his name, as though
he was in the yard
pruning a tree, delaying dinner,
the same he you cursed
glad to have him out of your life
and out of your house,
you wished him dead
so that you might call yourself
a widow and share
condolences with the other
black draped women.
You never mentioned
the six months of foster care
or the little sister who came
and went so quickly
when he had the audacity
to drop dead on you one morning.
This is what I would say to her,
this is the curse I would
place upon her
but she no longer
recognizes me, I am no more
than a well dressed orderly
come to remove her lunch tray.

Lou Faber



Lou Faber is a poet, and Corporate attorney, although writing is my first love. My work has appeared or will shortly appear in Footworks: The Paterson Literary Review, Exquisite Corpse, Cold Mountain Review, Chaminade Literary Review, Pearl, Eureka Literary Magazine, Yefief, Lullwater Review, Negative Capability, Borderlands, Rattle, Oasis and elsewhere.