Richard Luftig

Duluth


He remembers the whitecaps,
he grew up with, Superior filled
with ebbs and floes, Seiche winds,
driftwood and freshwater clams.
He closes his eyes and sees

a much younger man, a kid
in the navy, so full of himself,
sitting on some distant shore,
taking her hand, they dreaming
their way to the end of the world.

And now so alone, he longs
to return, make it right
this time, yet knows how
these ice-breath, March
winds hold no mercies

but that if he squints just
right from the Iron Range
east, over the lake, he might
look all the way to the Sault,
up the St. Lawrence, clear to sea.


Richard Luftig is a former professor of educational psychology and special education at Miami University in Ohio now residing in Pomona, CA. He is a recipient of the Cincinnati Post-Corbett Foundation Award for Literature and a semi finalist for the Emily Dickinson Society Award. His poems have appeared in numerous literary journals in the United States (including Thick with Conviction) and internationally in Japan, Canada, Australia, Europe, Thailand, Hong Kong and India.

Current Issue:
June 2014

Taylor Emily Copeland
Steve DeFrance
Mitchell Grabois
John Grey
Richard Luftig
Mary McCall
Simon Perchik
Tim Pilgrim
April Salzano

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