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Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow
​

POEM FOR THAT CRAZY BASEMENT

Eerie, the host’s hushed third-floor mirrored hall. Room after room,
wall-lined Brazilian Rosewood-windowed cabinetry, lit within: ornate
candelabra, outsized inlaid service trays, chubby cherubs circling silver
ice pails. I roamed rooms for a grand tureen the host’s wife insisted as
centerpiece, that my mother’s lobster bisque, prepared for one hundred
twenty, would fill. The first course.

Out of our basement came Angie’s catering business. Word of mouth
lured the northwest suburban mansions to her calendar, double-booking
every weekend, day events, evening affairs, three seasons until unfailing
arctic cold felled the city again. Still she booked favorites.

Often we returned the following day, the retrieval of banquet prep tables,
commercial-sized coffee makers, specialty knives, tools her alternating
staff exhaustedly left behind. And always, down a manicured hill’s lawn
edge lay a mammoth haphazard garbage heap. Heavy-duty garbage bags
pecked and plucked wide open. Unrecognizable foodstuffs tumbled out
atop the green expanse. Incorruptible handsome ravens. 
Partaking of easy bounty.

The party event menus themselves took on rousing personalities.
Clientele envisioned Angie a nourishing servant. Zeal glistened like hot
pig fat on their faces. Paraded through homes, she was shown luxurious
crooks and expanses. If some exotic object were cracked, broken, quite
valuable otherwise, often it would be offered, and she took. Random
rooms frequently kept exactly square, alabaster, utterly empty. Angie
adored this.

No reason why, only she felt calm.
I may be wrong. I find I’m wrong more and more often.
Nothing to covet. No wish too heady. But Angie.
In a boxy vacant room by herself with nothing--
burlesque-worthy, I have to figure. What of it.
Never was one day with my mother
in good conversation.
I was assured those rooms had no windows.
Barely doors.
I listen to fable.

                        Once there was a jet-winged bird
                      
who gained a window where there
     was not one. It could tilt a polished eye with
     unfettered regard through ivy-framed glass.
                Like a most beneficent guided missile
unsubtle and accurate, its beak so much more
                                                            than capable.
​

I bank on that raven
in its hurtling descent, wings tucked tightly in, then
the instinct instantly to outstretch utterly
and break.

--
Cynthia Schwartzberg Edlow has published two full length collections of poetry, Horn Section All Day Every Day, and The Day Judge Spencer Learned the Power of Metaphor (Salmon, 2018 and 2012). Horn Section All Day Every Day was a 2020 Phillip H. McMath Post Publication Book Award Finalist. Other honors include the Red Hen Press Poetry Award, Tusculum Review Poetry Prize, Willow Review Prize for Poetry, a Beullah Rose/Smartish Pace Poetry Prize, and three Pushcart Prize nominations. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in Plume Poetry Anthologies-Volumes 5, 7, and 11, Drawn to Marvel: Poems from the Comic Books, American Journal of Poetry, Barrow Street, Gargoyle, Gulf Coast, Hotel Amerika, Ilanot Review, Los Angeles Review, Plume, Salamander, Smartish Pace, Texas Review, and Verse Daily, among other venues.

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  • Home
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  • Issue #27 Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Art Spring 2024 >
      • Kristina Erny Spring 2024
      • Luiza Maia Spring 2024
      • Christy Lee Rogers Spring 2024
      • Erika Lynet Salvador Spring 2024
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2024
    • Issue #27 Poetry Spring 2024 >
      • Terry Belew Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Diamond Forde Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Dustin Brookshire​ & Caridad Moro-Gronlier Spring 2024 Spring 2024
      • Charlie Coleman Spring 2024
      • Isabelle Doyle Spring 2024
      • Reyzl Grace Spring 2024
      • Kelly Gray Spring 2024
      • Meredith Herndon Spring 2024
      • Mina Khan Spring 2024
      • Anoushka Kumar Spring 2024
      • Cate Latimer Spring 2024
      • BEE LB Spring 2024
      • Grace Marie Liu​ Spring 2024
      • Sarah Mills Spring 2024
      • Faisal Mohyuddin 2024
      • Marcus Myers Spring 2024
      • Mike Puican Spring 2024
      • Sarah Sorensen Spring 2024
      • Lynne Thompson Spring 2024
      • Natalie Tombasco Spring 2024
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2024
      • Donna Vorreyer Spring 2024
    • Fiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Bryan Betancur Spring 2024
      • Karen George Spring 2024
      • Raja'a Khalid Spring 2024
      • Riley Manning Spring 2024
      • Adina Polatsek Spring 2024
      • Beth Sherman Spring 2024
    • Nonfiction #27 Spring 2024 >
      • Liza Olson Spring 2024
  • Issue #28 Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Art Fall 2024 >
      • Eric Calloway Fall 2024
      • Matthew Fertel Fall 2024
      • JooLee Kang Fall 2024
      • Jian Kim Fall 2024
      • Robb Kunz Fall 2024
      • Sean Layh Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Poetry Fall 2024 >
      • Jodi Balas Fall 2024
      • Clayre Benzadón Fall 2024
      • Catherine Broadwall Fall 2024
      • Sara Burge Fall 2024
      • Judith Chalmer Fall 2024
      • Stephanie Choi Fall 2024
      • Sarah Jack Fall 2024
      • Jen Karetnick Fall 2024
      • Ae Hee Lee Fall 2024
      • Svetlana Litvinchuk Fall 2024
      • Mary Lou Buschi Fall 2024
      • Angie Macri Fall 2024
      • Gary McDowell Fall 2024
      • Sam Moe Fall 2024
      • Camille Newsom Fall 2024
      • Elizabeth O'Connell- Thompson Fall 2024
      • Olatunde Osinaike Fall 2024
      • Jessica Pierce Fall 2024
      • Diane Raptosh Fall 2024
      • Isaac Richards Fall 2024
      • Robyn Schelenz Fall 2024
      • Christopher Shipman Fall 2024
      • Alex Tretbar Fall 2024
      • Ruth Williams Fall 2024
      • Shannon K. Winston Fall 2024
      • Wendy Wisner Fall 2024
      • Anne Gerard Fall 2024
    • Issue #28 Fiction Fall 2024 >
      • J​oe Baumann Fall 2024
      • ​Morganne Howell Fall 2024
      • Matt Paczkowski Fall 2024
      • Ryan Peed Fall 2024
      • Gabriella Pitts Fall 2024
      • James Sullivan Fall 2024
  • Issue #29 Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Art Spring 2025 >
      • Irina Greciuhina Spring 2025
      • Jesse Howard Spring 2025
      • Paul Simmons Spring 2025
      • Marsha Solomon Spring 2025
      • Elzbieta Zdunek Spring 2025
      • Na Yoon Amelia Cha-Ryu Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Poetry Spring 2025 >
      • Deborah Bacharach Spring 2025
      • Diego Báez Spring 2025
      • Jaswinder Bolina Spring 2025
      • ​Ash Bowen Spring 2025
      • Christian J. Collier Spring 2025
      • ​Shou Jie Eng Spring 2025
      • Sara Fitzpatrick Spring 2025
      • Matthew Gilbert Spring 2025
      • Tammy C. Greenwood Spring 2025
      • Alejandra Hernández ​Spring 2025
      • Ben Kline ​Spring 2025
      • ​David Moolten Spring 2025
      • ​Tamer Mostafa Spring 2025
      • ​Rongfei Mu Spring 2025
      • Cynthia Neely Spring 2025
      • Pablo Otavalo Spring 2025
      • ​Bleah Patterson Spring 2025
      • ​M.A. Scott Spring 2025
      • ​Liam Strong ​ Spring 2025
      • Alexandra van de Kamp Spring 2025
      • ​Cassandra Whitaker Spring 2025
      • Angelique Zobitz Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Fiction Spring 2025 >
      • Vanessa Blakeslee Spring 2025
      • K. J. Coyle Spring 2025
      • Meredith MacLeod Davidson Spring 2025
      • Jessica Mosher Spring 2025
    • Issue #29 Nonfiction Spring 2025 >
      • JM Huscher Spring 2025
      • Qurrat ul Ain Raza Abbas Spring 2025