Somehow
you knew
all along that
nobody hears your song
the notes belong
only to you
nobody will read
your autobiography
because it wrote you
you’re naked under
all those clothes
the worst invention
of the 20 th Century
identity
now no one knows
who they are
according to Camus
Sisyphus is laughing
the thing about humor
it hides sadness
behind balloons
and noise makers
you’re the only one
at your party
you can’t invite anyone else
if you could
they wouldn’t come
Winter Walk in Pittsburgh
Blizzard so bright the sky turned dark.
Pleasant-sting of flakes against cold-
flushed cheeks. A parka-bundled neighbor
shovel-scrapes his front walk. We gesture
to the snow, palms up, as if in prayer. I love
it, I yell. Me too, he says. Cold-mist erupts
from our mouths—incense to the gelid gods.
I get worried, I say, when we don’t have winter.
A block later, a plump beagle named Clyde
lets me pet him in the storm. I love it, but
it makes me miss Mugsi, gone four months
now. Clyde’s sweet tongue and wiggly body,
oddly unsatisfying, like expecting a recipe
to quell hunger without fixing the dish.
Charlie Brice won the 2020 Field Guide Poetry Magazine Poetry Contest and placed third in the 2021 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Prize. His eighth full-length poetry collection is Miracles That Keep Me Going (WordTech Editions, 2023). His poetry has been nominated three times for the Best of Net Anthology and the Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Atlanta Review, The Honest Ulsterman, Ibbetson Street, Chiron Review, The MacGuffin, and elsewhere.
Sparks of Calliope 