The lady in front of me is crying plumsand peaches into her shopping cart. She’s been weepingproduce since I got in line. First peas,tight rolling armies, some dropinto her gusting mouth. Now, three kumquats tumbleoff each cheek, bananas dripfrom the tip of her nose. Does anyone else see this?When she sobs dark bumpy avocadosI hear myself sigh, oh.Those were on my list,but the bin was empty. I reach under her chinand catch a pear. A Williams, chartreuse,arched stem, nicer than the Bosc I chose. I bite.Our eyes meet. Cry a ham, I whisper.She does. Cry a marble bundt cake. Still warm,I ease it into my cart. Cry a wheel of Gouda.I ask for 60 watt soft white light bulbs. They bloomfrom her swollen eyelids. Just to seeif she can stand it, I order two Brazilianpineapples. No one notice—not the cashier,the other customers or the lanky stock boyin a blue apron, mopping.
The Miracle of Rain
Feature Date
- March 23, 2019
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Copyright © 2019 by Michael Mark
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
Michael Mark is a hospice volunteer and long distance walker. His poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, The American Journal of Poetry, Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, Columbia Poetry Review, Pleiades, Poet Lore, Potomac Review, Rattle, River Styx, Spillway, Sugar House Review, The Sun, Verse Daily, and The Poetry Foundation’s American Life in Poetry. His poetry has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and the Best of the Net. MichaelJMark.com
Fall / Winter 2018
Salt Lake City, Utah
Editors
Natalie Young
Nano Taggart
Katherine Indermaur
Sugar House Review is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit poetry publisher based out of Utah. Our mission is to promote an eclectic range of poets through publishing and live events to build nationally connected literary communities and foster the literary arts in Utah. We are excited to be some of the first people to see your work and to help the best of that work become available to a larger audience.
Sugar House Review was founded in 2009 by John Kippen, Nano Taggart, Jerry VanIeperen, and Natalie Young. At the time, it was the only independent, print poetry journal in Utah. Our name is based on both our location and desire to publish sticky, heart-racing, sweet, sweet addictive poetry. Sugar House is a neighborhood within Salt Lake City, named after the sugar beet factory of the Deseret Manufacturing Company (1851–1855).
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