Bindweed
It seems almost
laughable now but,
in those early months
of lawlessness,
many still held out hope.
The tanks had not yet
rumbled across Main Street,
the elders among us
cautioning restraint
with the arrest
of the first judge.
So,
when the snow
began to melt,
spring giving way
to summer on
the vast grasslands,
little patches
here and there
of blue flax
and buttons
of yellow agoseris
reminding us
to heed
the warning signs,
it fell,
in the end,
to the dirty,
forgotten bindweed –
flowering in that space
between curb
and sidewalk –
to awaken our instinct
for resistance,
our push against and up,
no matter what.
Bellwether
The oxygen tubing lies across his
chest like the bell that would hang
from the weder. Twelve hundred miles
from here, the day before Thanksgiving,
in a medical center east of Nashville,
the decision has been made to remove
Josh from life support. At 34 his organs
have finally surrendered to the genetic
abnormality that has been creating
blood clots in his body from the moment
he was conceived. Our son’s best friend,
they’ve been avid gamers for years
across the internet. Now, his family,
ours, and others, wait for no miracle.
The beeps and lights of the hospital room
suggest a middle silence, a lame duck
interregnum, a possible path forward
that we cannot see without Josh leading
the way. His dad texts our son:
Thank you for being his friend.
M F Drummy holds a PhD in historical theology from Fordham University. The author of numerous articles, essays, poems, reviews, and a monograph on religion and ecology, his poetry has appeared in dozens of journals, literary magazines, and anthologies, including Allium, Meetinghouse, Novus, and San Pedro River Review. His debut full-length collection of poetry (Perdido) from MSR Publishing will be forthcoming later this year. Originally from Massachusetts, he and his way cool life partner of over 20 years enjoy splitting their time between the Colorado Rockies and the rest of the planet. He can be found at
https://www.instagram.com/miguelito.drummalino/
https://bsky.app/profile/miguelito56.bsky.social
https://www.pw.org/directory/writers/m_f_drummy
January House Literary Journal 
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