I woke up this morning,
another board of the fence
separating our yard
from our neighbor’s
had broken and fallen,
The empty space hung there
like a missing tooth
or a bar of music
where the right hand
takes a rest.
I tied my hammock
to the two posts and
slept all day in the empty space.
My ears still hum
with the quiet music of the vines
that no longer climb there.
Hank Lazer has contributed poetry, critical prose, and reviews to the VQR since 1973. His eighteen books of poetry include N24 (Little Red Leaves, 2014), N18 (Singing Horse, 2012), and Portions (Lavender Ink, 2009). Pages from Lazer’s shape-writing handwritten notebooks have been performed with soprano saxophonist Andrew Raffo Dewar. In 2015, he received Alabama’s Harper Lee Award for lifetime achievement in literature. Lazer retired from the University of Alabama in 2014, where he was associate provost for academic affairs, executive director of Creative Campus, and a professor of English.
