Although we walked as a group, although we each wore boots, although the beauty of the landscape touched each of us—the mountains, the valleys, the hillsides, the dawning of fall foliage, the crows swooping in on the winds—although the rain touched each of us equally, I stood out from the others, nothing to say to them, no pointers for their golf games, no thoughts about chocolate, no grandchildren—none of the small things we might have had in common. I could think of nothing save the beauty and the weather, which could only go so far in conversation, so I kept to myself, never feeling more alone than when I joined this pilgrimage of friends.

alone
the group banished her
red umbrella

Carla Schwartz’s

poems have been collected in her books: Signs of Marriage (Finishing Line Press, 2022), Mother, One More Thing (Turning Point, 2014), and Intimacy with the Wind (Finishing Line Press, 2017). Recent curations include The Banyan Review, Channel, Cutthroat, The Ear, great weather for MEDIA, The Inquisitive Eater, LEON Literary Review, The MacGuffin, New Verse News, Paterson Literary Review, Remington Review, Sheila-Na-Gig, Silver Birch Press, Triggerfish Critical Review, and Verse-Virtual.

Carla Schwartz received a Massachusetts Cultural Council Grant in 2023. Her poem “Pat Schroeder Was Our Mother” won the 2023 New England Poetry Club E.E. Cummings Prize.

Learn more at the author’s website, which also includes links to her YouTube videos: https://www.carlapoet.com/