poetry quarterly

10th anniversary

LANGSTON HUGHES TRIBUTE ISSUE

Reginald Harris

 


LIVING ROOM

Black and white photos in unpolished frames.
Table clock unwound, stuck on 3:15.
Decks of cards mixed from four different games.
Candles in the mantle corners, red and green
molded into tiny Christmas trees. M.L.King
on a calendar from Our Barbershop. Scotch and milk.
Postcards from his children's frequent trips. Chinese vase, Ming
from Woolworth's, filled with flowers, lifelike silk.

Patterned couch and chair wrapped in plastic—not for family,
just guests. TV/radio/record-player all-in-one console
(Real simulated wood, or so he says). Mardi Gras beads.
Ashtrays, full, borrowed from downtown's finest hotel
where once he polished shoes to a high sheen.
In the corner, silent, his wife's church tambourine.

credits


Reginald Harris just recently left Baltimore to take a new job as Poetry in the Branches Program Coordinator for Poets House in New York. Harris was a Finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and the ForeWord Book of the Year for 10 Tongues: Poems (2001). He is a Pushcart Prize Nominee and recipient of Individual Artist Awards for both poetry and fiction from the Maryland State Arts Council. He is currently pretending to work on two manuscripts.

 

Published in Volume 12, Number 1, Winter 2011.

To read more by this author:
Reginald Harris: Museum Issue