for Bob Fox (1943-2005)

 

When someone knocks

on your cranium in a dream

you should open your eyes

and pay them attention.

Like taking a forkful

of a moist slice

of coconut cake after

the server at Denny’s

plops it wobbly on the table.

So, hello again, Bob,

your moustache dense like

a warm bowl of morning

oatmeal and your breath

burned into the skin

of your CDs.  The idea

of your leaving

still tucked away

in my glove box,

the helium

in your tutelage

made us all rise.

You were no

Yiddish journalist but

Meigs County cropper who

detested the stuffiness

of gentleman farmer

and shaped subway

fables even past

the ninth inning.

Now it’s elsewhere

stirred by a mystic

dream board—

so hello, middle-

of-the-night visitor.

You’re still strongly

in deed, fresh

as the news, traveler

on destiny’s meridian.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rikki Santer’s work has appeared in various publications including Ms. Magazine, Poetry East, Slab, Slipstream, [PANK], Crab Orchard Review, RHINO, Grimm, Hotel Amerika and The Main Street Rag. Her work has received many honors including six Pushcart and three Ohioana book award nominations as well as a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Her tenth collection, How to Board a Moving Ship, has just been released by Lily Poetry Review Books. 

Stephanie Liebetrau lives and works in Port Elizabeth/ Gqeberha. She completed a Diploma in Graphic Design at Cape Technikon. Her evocative oil paintings & collages fuse South African women with natural elements to create hybrids that diffuse the boundary between the real and recreated. She explores themes such as Eco-Feminism and remains fascinated by the “fragile hieroglyphics” in nature’s design. Her work is often ekphrastic, inspired by poetry, scripture and sacred texts.