The Visitor


I address this poem to the woman
who stuck her ear to the door of our classroom
and wandered away.

I want to say this:
You have a lovely ear.

I’m sorry if that sounds strange,
but, when I saw you behind the frosted glass,
I thought of a girl I once knew.

Her ears, petals of a flower,
opened around the kindness of her face.

Sometimes
I imagine I stand alone on a stage.
She sits in the front row and smiles while I read to her.

Once, just once, I would have liked
to ask her… but never mind.
I would have liked you to join us.

I want to tell you everything –
why I sometimes laugh as I walk alone at night,
and why I go walking at all. .

If you ever come again to the door of our classroom,
please come in and take a seat beside me.
I, at least, will smile to see you.





S BOHEM : A POEM OF FAREWELL


I miss autumn afternoons:
the smell of fallen apples,
leaves drifting shyly to the ground,
and you,
looking for words in tea growing cold.

Stephen Bradford graduated from Utah State University with a degree in Creative Writing. His poem "Farewell to Cache Valley" was featured in issue 13 of Thick With Conviction. He has also published poems in Obsessed With Pipework, The Storyteller, and Chantarelle's Notebook.