by Howie Good
UNDERTOW
Your hands fall helplessly
to your sides. All the people
you admire are either dead
or secretly sad. You feel
the undertow of everything
that has gone missing.
I should have been there
with you when the little
black flowers broke open.
I should have watched
for children like the sign said.
CROSSROADS
No one knows
which truth
is the right truth
to follow.
Father flexes
his trigger finger.
Mother searches
the pocket
of her apron
for the paragraph
she tore
out of the paper.
It's about dark
by this time.
The children kick
human skulls
from their path.
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the full-length poetry collections Lovesick (Press Americana, 2009), Heart With a Dirty Windshield (BeWrite Books, 2010), and Everything Reminds Me of Me (Desperanto, 2011), as well as numerous print and digital poetry chapbooks, including most recently Love Dagger from Right Hand Pointing.