ISSN: 1941-4137
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
POETRY THAT ENACTS THE ARTISTIC AND CREATIVE PURITY OF GLASS
Rikki Santer’s poetry has been published widely and has received many honors including several Pushcart and Ohioana book award nominations, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and in 2023 she was named Ohio Poet of the Year. She is a past vice-president of the Ohio Poetry Association and currently is a member of the teaching artist roster of the Ohio Arts Council. Her collection, Resurrection Letter, was grand prize short-listed for the Eric Hoffer Book Award and her forthcoming collection, Shepherd’s Hour, won the Paul Nemser Book Prize from Lily Poetry Review Books.
September 9, 2026
City and Soul
Once I lived in the lap of an alley
that opened into the wingspan
of a parking lot. It was
the syntax of this city corridor
that nudged me that summer.
Ivy caligraphy preened the countenance
of rhyming apartment buildings,
vines of Black-eyed Susans embraced
stubborn chain link. And every morning,
a library of noise — parrot mic’d up
on its balcony, high heels clicking
alongside delivery truck groans.
But most of all it was the rivulets
of grass and dandelions in the toothy
cracks of concrete reminding me
of what can be invisible until it’s not.
I named the pigeon Bartleby,
loitering for bagel bits
at my downtown office window.
The iridescence of its neck
led me, too often, to daydream
for sprouted wings launching me
from the sill to glide above skyscraper spikes
and hard-faced glass —
this city a forest that could eat you.
Dusk and take-out at a park bench,
the spangling of fireflies, champions
after the heat, the congestion,
the monotony. Constellations of sparrows
chattering in the oaks, squirrels vogue
with T-rex paws for peanuts, cartography
of lawns patched with cigarette butts
and the rocks were the rocks.
Another morning at First and Gay.
I wait beside a leafy sycamore
for the light to change.
Silhouette of an electric man in a box
beckons me with his flashing,
and then the questioning eyes
of a studious man, facefull
of smile. The clove
of his after shave.
The green light.
This love poem.
Glass: A Journal of Poetry is published weekly by Glass Poetry Press.
All contents © the author.
All contents © the author.
