George Franklin
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George Franklin practices law in Miami. Poetry & Pigeons: Short Essays on Writing is forthcoming from SheilaNa-Gig Editions in January2025. Remote Cities is his third full-length poetry collection with Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, complementing Noise of the World (2020) and Traveling for No Good Reason (winner of the Sheila-Na-Gig Editions manuscript competition in 2018). He has also authored the dual-language collection, Among the Ruins / Entre las ruinas (translated by Ximena Gómez and published by Katakana Editores, 2020), and a chapbook, Travels of the Angel of Sorrow (Blue Cedar Press, 2020). He is the co-translator, along with the author, of Ximena Gómez’s Último día / Last Day and co-author with Gómez of Conversaciones sobre agua / Conversations About Water (Katakana Editores 2019 & 2023).
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Natural Causes
I’m at that age where friends die from natural causes.
Maybe they’re working out on the elliptical and feel a pain
In the chest, nausea, and a little while later, they’ve stopped
Being themselves—they’ve become memories for the rest of us.
I want to be able to call them on their eternal cellphones,
Ask what they’re reading these days or what they think
About the election. I have to imagine their answers now.
Bob is reading Pushkin in a comfortable house made
From adobe brick and shiny blue tiles. From where he’s
Sitting, he can hear a fountain. In the distance, mountains
Cast shadows across a valley. A dog barks at a truck
Passing by the gate. In another ending, my friend Erik
Is reading a sci-fi novel he somehow missed before.
He no longer cares much about politics. “Once you’re
Dead,” he tells me, “you realize we all end up the same.
It either makes you a belated nihilist or a hopeful pacifist.”
But there’re always new books on the bookshelves,
The mug of black coffee stays full and warm, and he can
Order pizza whenever he wants. It’s like a video game
Where you’ve beaten all the levels, have way too much
In the way of weapons and health, so you can whale
On the villains as much as you want—except the fun’s
Gone out of it. About this point, the connection
Gets wonky, sounds like we’re talking through tin cans
And a string, and I remember I haven’t called Tom,
Who became an actor out in LA, or Katherine who
Lived in St. Paul. At least, that’s where they used to be.
A Persistent Roar
In Massachusetts, our building faced an alley
Behind some grad student housing.
When it snowed, they plowed us last,
And when they did, the plow would dump
Mounds of snow on top of the cars, the hard
Heavy stuff that turns to concrete by the time
You can get down to shovel it off. Just across
The alley was a commercial laundry.
The extraction cycle shook the whole building.
You didn’t put anything on the edge of a table.
In the spring, though, I’d leave to go camping,
By myself, in New Hampshire or Vermont.
My wife stayed behind, preferring
Regular showers and time on her own. Things
Were not good between us. One year, I left
Too early, and I wandered onto a trail that had been
Washed out by flooding. I had to cross a stream
That was above my thighs, and I came out shaking,
My body temperature lower than it should be.
It was still daylight, but I crawled into my sleeping bag
To get warm. When I woke up the sun had already
Dropped below the mountains. I cooked oatmeal
On a brass camping stove and went back to sleep.
Two divorces later, I don’t remember the things
We fought about then or why they were important,
But I remember the smell of oatmeal, the stars sliding
West, and the persistent roar of that stream.
