SEWANEE REVIEW最新文献

• Mrs. Flowers
• Mary Jo Salter

Five minutes before the concert begins.I'm sitting next to some old guy—even older than I—and ask him some idle questions.

Does he live nearby?Oh, did he walk then?I walk that street, I know his view—right on a little public garden.

Nothing fancy, and yet delightful.I picture the spring newlywedsposing for photographersbefore beds of tulip and daffodil

or under the bridal canopiesof cherry trees;billowing picnic blankets keptfrom flying away

by babies, set down like paperweights …but I don't go into that; he knows it.It's wonderful the city supports itis all I say. [End Page 479]

Oh, he says, the funds are private.Or they are now. Didn't used to be.Really? It turns out he was chairof the garden committee

for years and yearsand he had it on authoritynobody else who worked on the citybudget had been aware

a little fund for the garden was in it.Don't rock the boat,don't ask for more, orthat pittance will be taken away:

that's what his source had said.And then that city bureaucrat quit.He happened to be replaced—get this—by someone named Mrs. Flowers.

Mrs. Flowers! The old manlaughs at the thought of her, the dragon.She cut the garden fund at once—Cut Flowers, they called her—and ever since

the locals, or those who can, donatemoney or time. A happy ending—or not quite that; a funny oneabout killjoys, who always sort of win. [End Page 480]

The string quartet is tuning up;it sounds like whining,the sort of thingpeople tend to do on committees

before one person has the senseto call for silence.The old man and I defer to itwith a seasoned nod

as people in the neighborhoodhad to Mrs. Flowers.And went on waiting for the musicand planting flowers. [End Page 481]

• Two Poems
• Matthew Nienow (bio)

History

There is no way I can explain the pastin a manner that doesn't somehowfree the sparrow from the barn,but not before it crashes against the glassover and over, falling to the bench. Stunnedand on its back, I scooped the sparrowfrom the wood and carried it outsidewhile it slowly turned its headand nipped my fingers with its beak,a dun ghost weightless in my hands.I gave the bird to the crook of a willowthen stood back. Even that day, I hadbeen thinking of killing myself. Whenthe bird finally flew, I was offeredno thanks, no revelation. Saving thatsmall life from the trap of a buildingdid not change me. At least not then,when I could see no other way to be.When it would have been impossiblefor me to imagine ever being the bird. [End Page 534]

Someday, If I Am Lucky

I will be survived by this open acreringed by cedars and firs, thismeadow collecting yellow light,where today, alive, I lingerin the listening, housed in a shapecapable of such ordinary song. I wishto thank the minerals in my bonesand all this borrowed epiphany, all thisendless ache linking arms with sorrow.May many tomorrows nestin such green valleys. May we allaccept the ground we will become. [End Page 535]

Matthew Nienow is the author of House of Water and If Nothing, both from Alice James Books. His work has appeared in Gulf Coast, Missouri Review, New England Review, Ploughshares, and Poetry. He lives in Port Townsend, Washington, with his wife and two sons, where he works as a mental health counselor.

• Small Vices
• Eduardo Martínez-Leyva (bio)

Snow illuminated the park and you wanted to die. That winter

you slept with a saucer of water under your bed. Every night. Woke up to find nothing

but the off-white-stare of the empty cup. Spelled out your fantasies on my upturned

palms. They were dirty. Unsayable. Between us ran a long line of insomniacs

and addicts. Bad habits. Missing history we wanted to piece back together. Stitch it

like an heirloom displayed behind a glass vetrine. We looked for signs in cards and tea.

In the language our muscles made at night. The nearness of stars, in songs.

As the storm hit, reaching past our hips you read Russian novels to feel less morose. [End Page 404]

Said you loved the word 'morose' more than me. Locked yourself behind your grin-wrinkled face

which you believed looked like a foreign town pillaged years ago. Curtainless. Flags at half-staff.

When the lights finally went out, you tried your hardest covering all of this up with your hands.

My voice was the only thing keeping us warm. [End Page 405]

Eduardo Martínez-Leyva was born in El Paso, Texas, to Mexican immigrants. His work has appeared in Poetry, the Boston Review, the Adroit Journal, Best New Poets, and elsewhere. His debut poetry collection, Cowboy Park, won the 2024 Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry and is forthcoming from the University of Wisconsin Press.