Current Issue: Spring/Summer 2011

When the World is Beautiful  
George Eklund

Dark needle here is the prize.
Dark paper here is the voice you cannot hear.
My statements are carried into oblivion
Upon white sails across the lake.
There is a photograph of us as children
Smiling in another city of heaven,
Or is it the hell of the dream?

The empty sky kisses the empty alley,
The open face.
Almost dying in hiding
We accept that everyone is in hiding.
We make introductions anyway
According to songs we relied upon,
Songs we used to hum to ourselves.

When the world is beautiful
I think of the dead
And the sky fills with itself
And with children and white sails.