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    Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY is delighted to announce the following poems have been nominated for inclusion in 2024’s Best of the Net anthology: Flight Path by Laura RodleyThe Sonnet by Ed HackRailway Station, Bendery, Moldova by Tovli SimiryanBaptism by Greg WatsonMaking Up by Larina WarnockAll the best stories are true by Julia Klatt Singer —read more—

Spring Fires by Hilary Biehl

Spring Fires

I am driving home from the mall with my son in tow.
It’s 3 PM. I’ve turned my headlights on.
Everyone else has, too. Where there should be sun
and clouds moving over a face of abyssal blue

there is only an orange smudge, immense and near,
as if a feverish hand had tried to blot
some indiscretion but managed instead to coat
the sky with an eerie grime of regretful fear.

The smoke is apocalyptic. My son coughs
and I reach for his inhaler. I’m grateful we still
have a home to drive to; I try not to add “until.”
I try not to let my thoughts go to bleaching reefs

and nuclear weapons. Find the apartment key.
Open the door. Put the groceries away. Wash up.
And the molten glitter I wash with leaves the tap
in cool abundance, as if it might never run dry.

by Hilary Biehl

Editor’s Note: The slant rhymes in this poem highlight the juxtaposition of gratitude and disaster felt by the speaker by keeping the reader always slightly off-keel.

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