Logo, MacQueen's Quinterly
Listed at Duotrope
MacQueen’s Quinterly: Knock-your-socks-off Art and Literature
Issue 8: June 2021
Poem: 113 words
By LeeAnn Pickrell

Seconds

 
A walk around and up, 
the rug pulled out 
to reveal a not-there floor, 
memories that aren’t mine—
a photograph of my parents 
on their wedding day, December 5, 
fifty-six years ago, my mother 
in a navy wool suit and matching 
pill box hat, a black rose pin 
on her lapel that I wear now. 
My father in a dark brown suit, 
his thick eyebrows framing 
his open face. We’re a family 
that does better the second time, 
second marriages, second 
chances when the shine is 
scuffed, when I can meet 
a friend for coffee and discover 
I left the house still wearing 
my slippers and it’s not 
the end of everything.

 

LeeAnn Pickrell
Issue 8, June 2021

is a poet living in Richmond, California. Her work previously appeared in KYSO Flash, and most recently in Eclectica, Coffee Poems, and West Marin Review. She is a freelance editor, and managing editor of Jung Journal: Cultural and Psyche.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

Ekphrastic poetry by LeeAnn Pickrell:

Hand and Wheel, after Georgia O’Keeffe—Hand and Wheel (1933) by Alfred Stieglitz, in KYSO Flash (Issue 8, August 2017)

Ode to Coffee, after a painting by Richard Diebenkorn, in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 4, July 2020)

 
 
Copyright © 2019-2024 by MacQueen’s Quinterly and by those whose works appear here.
Logo and website designed and built by Clare MacQueen; copyrighted © 2019-2024.
Data collection, storage, assimilation, or interpretation of this publication, in whole
or in part, for the purpose of AI training are expressly forbidden, no exceptions.
⚡   Please report broken links to: MacQuinterly [at] gmail [dot] com   ⚡

At MacQ, we take your privacy seriously. We do not collect, sell, rent, or exchange your name and email address, or any other information about you, to third parties for marketing purposes. When you contact us, we will use your name and email address only in order to respond to your questions, comments, etc.