Flying Island

Rain Momma always said you can smell the rain before it even hits pavement before the sirens blare with full wiper clearing off a torrent of tears Momma wasn’t there the day you gasped for a breath that almost never came, when your sister said you looked like momma right before she never came home, right before she hollered help me to our son five hundred miles away, but frankly to me, you never looked more beautiful than when I touched your hand and let them take you and when they flipped on the flashing lights, I knew home was just as far as our son was the day Momma died, the day our yard was a river and you were the bridge   Kevin LeMaster lives in South Shore, Kentucky. His poems have been found at SheilaNaGig online, The Slipstream , Triggerfish Critical Review , Route 7 Review , West Trade Review , The Big Window Review , Santa Clara Review Dead Skunk Magazine and others. He has work forthcoming in Internet Void , Main Street Rag and Coffin Bell Journal. His work...

Carry He wears the world  like a torn coat uncomfortable with how the sleeves ride to the elbow how tight the shoulders feel when he moves too much. He dreams of when a 42 long, fit comfortably and tattered things were something told that didn’t seem like lies, this world,  a swallow of dry leaves.  He dreams of the day when  black men can live without the fear of a bullet tattooing the chest of everyone they love, their necks bent toward hell,  a day when no one will walk into a supermarket and open fire in the produce section behind the deli. He is like a boy with a tiny wounded bird cradling the world in his arms, stroking its tired feathers and nursing  it back to health so  it can raise more white sons to kill again. This coat grows smaller with each wear, full of holes and bleeding the same red.     Kevin LeMaster lives in South Shore Kentucky. His poems have been found at SheilaNaGig online, The Slipstream, Triggerfish Critica...