In View of Edison Bridge

The small fan blows half circles
right to left to right
in memorized patterns.
Awning shades and

keeps out direct breezes
from Cuba. They
pass through porch screens
on the day before I leave.

I’ll leave these things
to deal with stillness
locked tight behind hard pine
and history. No music will play

when I’m gone.
Old books won’t flutter
from anyone’s reading.
The solitary room

won’t wait for my return. But
we’re little gods who think
we run the world, that even
empty houses jones for us,

that our leaving makes
a difference.


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Poet, composer of music, lawyer, aspiring teacher and spoken-word performer, L. Ward Abel lives in rural Georgia, and has been published at The Reader, The Yale Anglers’ Journal, Versal, The Pedestal, Pale House, Kritya, Ditch, Open Wide, Moloch, and hundreds of others. Abel has recently been nominated for “Best of the Web” by Dead Mule and The Northville Review. He is the author of Peach Box and Verge (Little Poem Press, 2003), Jonesing For Byzantium (UK Authors Press, 2006) and the recently released The Heat of Blooming (Pudding House Press, 2008).