The Banyan Review: Howie Faerstein

Howie Faerstein is the author of two chapbooks: Play a Song on the Drums, he said and Out of Order (Main Street Rag) and two full-length collections: Dreaming of the Rain in Brooklyn and Googootz and Other Poems, both published by Press 53. His poetry and reviews can be found in Great River Review, Nimrod, CutThroat, Off the Coast, Rattle, upstreet, Mudfish and on-line in Verse Daily, Nixes Mate, Gris-Gris, Peacock Journal, and Connotation. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he volunteers as a citizenship mentor at the Center for New Americans, is co-poetry editor of CutThroat, A Journal of the Arts, and lives in Florence, MA. 

In No Other World But This

when Jacob and then Esther died	there was absence	but it seemed natural
when Lloyd died,	when Terry and then Ken died	though expected it was unnatural
when Ann and Chana succumbed	again it felt predictable	Life       improbable imperative   	and yet
in no other world but ours	refugia of all that survived 	earth’s last glacial maximum
when Kathy and Tomás died	when Ed and Irv were taken off life support	when Carl died and Cliff then Nancy—
porcelain pelican beak 	repaired at fix-it clinic 	counter to throwaway culture 	Edith promised to mend it    	now she’s dead
a catalog of departures	a series of amputations	but still not sufficient	to tear me in two
when Gummy and Emma and all the other	cats and dogs were put down	or died on their pet beds
	it seemed enough—
like the end of waterthe arrival of emptied air						come back we say	come back

Howie Faerstein

In No Other World But This

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