False spring today. 
A mild breeze fans 
the bare trees 
as if in rehearsal. 
I walk along the riverbank 
lost in thought. 

It has been a hard winter—
like living inside an ice cave 
with a constant gray sky that lodged 
in my bones. 
And for friends 
on the edge, 

a final fall 
into that oblivion 
where not a single 
bird sings 
and spring is always 
a day away. 

Steve Deutsch

is poetry editor of Centered Magazine and the first poet in residence at the Bellefonte Art Museum. He has six volumes of poetry published, most recently the full-length Seven Mountains (Kelsay Books, 2024). His book Brooklyn (Evening Street Press, 2023) was awarded the Sinclair Poetry Prize in 2022. Kelsay Press released his full-length collections Slipping Away (2023); Going, Going, Gone (2021); and Persistence of Memory (September 2020); and his chapbook, Perhaps You Can (2019).

Steve’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net; and has appeared most recently in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, Backchannels, The Bluebird Word, The Coachella Review, The Loch Raven Review, Lothlorien, MacQueen’s Quinterly, Misfit Magazine, and The Write Launch.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ Best Intentions by Steven Deutsch, reprinted from his book Seven Mountains in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily (28 December 2024)

⚡ Memories, a poem by Steve Deutsch in Issue 20 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (aka MacQ-20), published September 2023

⚡ Give Them All to Me in MacQ-23 (April 2024)