Kevin LeMaster
Kevin LeMaster lives in South Shore Kentucky. His poems have been found at The Lakes, Appalachian Heritage, Praxis magazine, Rockvale Review, The Rye Whiskey Review, Birmingham Arts Journal, Plainsongs and Coe Review. He has had recent work published in Dragon Poet Review, Pangolin Review, Constellations and Inkwell Journal and work forthcoming in The Bookends Review and Heartwood Literary Review. Kevin was a finalist for the Mahogany Red Lit Prize. His work in “Rubicon: Words and art inspired by Oscar Wildes De Profundis” was nominated for a Pushcart prize.
When a day dies
The red mare is down again,
probably for good this time,
while we remodel what’s
left of my mother-in-law’s
final wishes, circular saws and drills
drown out the near miss of gunshot.
A yellow backhoe digs a grave
today, while we make sure
the termites don’t win their race
to destroy what’s left of the west wall.
Another shot rings true across
the gray shadowed field as she
is folded like a roadmap into a hole
dug as deep as tomorrow. When a
new day unfolds, we pray nothing
has to give its life for sacrifice and
that the day can come and go
as it pleases.
After the flesh
After you fell, hands braced,
head skidding off the freshly
exposed masonite chiseled
from your dad’s bathroom floor,
you found a new lump
during another
self examination
and swore it was malignant.
This was the good breast.
The one that didn’t
undergo the surgeons knife,
the limited reconstruction,
radiation peeling back layers
of skin until all that’s left
is one’s true self.
The body cries out
and you hold it like someone
else’s dead child, limp as the
flesh is when the perkiness is
gone, the plausible deniability.
You hold it like a dream you
remember and dread the word
dissolving in your throat,
a language you dare not speak
with a mouth full of hope.
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