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MY WIVES
by John Grey
My wives don’t
bed down with me at night.
Instead, they walk the hallways,
ascend, descend, the stairs,
dressed in threadbare wedding garments,
gripping tight each other’s hands.
These brides
have nothing to do with love,
only presence.
They speak in a whisper.
But without words.
Just sounds that become a language
with repetition.
They do not look in on me.
They know my history well enough.
And what are my present circumstances
but a bedridden, crippled old man,
attended to by a mute male nurse
and a deaf cook—
a prime receptacle for pity
whose only source is myself.
My wives
are incapable of human contact,
impervious to what I might say or do.
Their strength is in having each other.
Their weakness is
that I have not passed over yet.
John Grey is an Australian
poet, US resident, recently published in New World Writing, River and
South and The Alembic. Latest books, Bittersweet, Subject
Matters, and Between Two Fires, are available through Amazon. Work
upcoming in Paterson Literary Review, White all Review, and Cantos.
KJ Hannah Greenberg is eclectic.
She’s played oboe, participated in martial arts, learned basket
weaving, and studied Middle Eastern dancing. What’s more, she’s a certified herbalist,
and an AP College Board-authorized teacher of calculus. Her creative efforts have been nominated once for The Best of the Net in
poetry, once for The Best of the Net in art, three times for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for
poetry, once for the Pushcart Prize in Literature for fiction, once for the Million Writers
Award for fiction, and once for the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the
Art of the Essay. To boot, Hannah’s had more than forty-five books published and has
served as an editor for several literary journals. Check out her latest short fiction collection, An Orbit of Chairs: https://www.amazon.com/Orbit-Chairs-KJ-Hannah-Greenberg/dp/B0CWMMM73T Within its pages are two tales originally published at Yellow Mama: "Alive Another Day" and
"Light Notes." Channie's new art book, Life's Colors, https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FGCTHJ6Z, just launched (hit "read
sample" button). It contains images originally published by Yellow Mama.
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