Art: from Glow Series by Ken Collins
MARY’S MOONBEAMS
We steamroll into the bustle,
Father and son bedazzled
alongside bakers and housewives
clamoring for a collective spectacle
by ‘The Diving Horse’ show.
The animal splashes
into a pool as I drop
two Buffalo nickels
into a tin can
and lift my kin onto my shoulders.
Slice through the crowd’s
ocean sweat
smelting under The Big Top
where a man in striped-suit prominence is
here to tell you a story, a story I must say you shall never forget even after a thousand
tomorrows. See you all must know the diamond clear lake only a stone’s throw away. Well a
decade past, I came upon a young woman standing at the lake’s edge. The moon fired a fierce
white as she stared into a beam’s handprint pressed into the water. With my approach, her neck
snapped up. After she nodded in a calm greeting within the darkness, she collapsed into her
captivation. When her soaking body crawled back onto land, oh the glow — my friends, I tell no
lies — the glow infused the strength of our lunar sister’s blaze into the tree trunks of her legs, the
branches of her arms, the fruit of her sight. Dare to believe? Now you must. At long last ladies
and gentlemen — please brace yourselves — I give you Mary’s moonbeams
busting out into a ball of blindness
like a locomotive headlight
shoving darkness
into the timeout corner.
About the author:
Keith Mark Gaboury earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Emerson College. His poems have appeared in such publications as Poetry Quarterly, New Millennium Writings, and on the podcast Who Do You Think You Are? Keith is a poet and preschool teacher in San Francisco, California.
Art: from Glow Series by Ken Collins
In the artist’s words:
Professional photographer and artist in NYC. Work has been published in numerous magazines including; American Theater, New York Magazine, The New York Times, Artnews, Inc, Newsweek, Orion, Lenswork, etc. Umbrage Books published Ken’s award winning portrait series of American Playwrights titled In Their Company, Portraits of American Playwrights. Ken has had a number of solo and group exhibitions and his work is included in private and public collections. Ken teaches at the International Center of Photography
