Russell Rowland

Simeon Says


Old man takes his time, he has no choice,
down his flagstone walk to Rural #305.

The daily brown car has just pulled up,
its driver steering from the passenger seat.

Old man will open and shut Rural #305
as the driver has done, then take his time

back to shabby house and cluttered table,
thumbing envelopes and colored circulars.

Perhaps it’s a check from Social Security
or Veteran’s Administration. Or perhaps

another hospital bill, two pages columned
with cryptic, astronomic calculation. Or

a flier from Suite 25-B about hearing aids.
Every few years, a noncommittal update

from his transient daughter. Up to now,
it has never been whatever it would need

to be, for an old man to place it opened
among the pills, remove his glasses, wipe

his eyes with a handkerchief, and suggest
to the stillness: Now let me die in peace.


Russell Rowland is from New Hampshire’s Lakes Region. A five-time Pushcart Prize nominee, he is a past winner of Old Red Kimono’s Paris Lake Poetry Contest and Descant’s Baskerville Publishers Poetry Prize. His chapbook, “Train of All Cabooses,” is available from Finishing Line Press. Recent work appears in Illya’s Honey and The Aurorean.

Current Issue:
December 2011

Russ Brickey
Jackson Burgess
Robert Demaree
James H. Duncan
Carol Lynn Grellas
Paul Hostovsky
Seif-Eldeine Och
Jane Olivier
Timothy Pilgrim
Russell Rowland
M. Travis Walsh

Home