Kerry Trautman

Night Songs

(for M M)

 

We walked your neighborhood summer

nights. Porch lights and lightning bugs hovered

 

over lawns, while in your mom, in your kitchen,

sipped rum-and-Diet-Cokes, sang with

 

Barry Manilow records around a cigarette.

I never learned to give without taking, did I?

 

Walking, occasional dogs barked from front

window curtains or lawn chains. Sun blushes

 

young girls’ skin pink like Avon lip-gloss,

moonlight icing it back white. Once

 

someone left a nice red chair at the curb.

You dared me to sit in it. At the front door, your

 

dog, Mandy, waited for us. She was softer

than all the dogs I never had. Occasional cars

 

passed in the night. Your above-ground pool—

water up to my chin—was warm as night cooled.

 

I write poems of old things my brain still sings.

Along my sidewalks dogs smile without us.

 

 

Kerry Trautman lives in Ohio, USA. Her work has appeared previously in Hobo Camp Review as well as numerous other journals and anthologies. Her books are: Things That Come in Boxes (King Craft Press 2012,) To Have Hoped (Finishing Line Press 2015,) Artifacts (NightBallet Press 2017,) To be Nonchalantly Alive (Kelsay Books 2020,) Marilyn: Self-Portrait, Oil on Canvas (Gutter Snob Books 2022,) Unknowable Things (Roadside Press 2022,) Irregulars (Stanchion Books 2023,) Things to Say When You Have Nothing to Say (Roadside Press 2026,) and Days of Bees (Dancing Girl Press, 2026.)