Brian Kenneth Swain

Click play below to listen to a reading of this poem by the author. My America stands outside the nursery at Bath Memorial Hospital, one hand raised to the glass, uncertain which is the one. Already concerned about strained carrots and strollers and college and being needed. My America waits at a New Haven bus stop, shoes moist with early morning dew. Holds tight to the youngest one’s tiny hand, afraid to let her go alone to that first day of kindergarten. My America thrashes and beats rubber on concrete as Newark back lot boys slam-dunk dreams through steel chain hoops that jingle in the August heat like life flying away. My America stands at the corner of Watson Street and Lee. Gazes up at the telephone lines and ...

Leonardo’s Lunchbox Inventor, Painter, Poet, Philosopher. The defining renaissance man. I’m betting he was a bologna and cheese sort of fellow. No squishy formless egg salad for the master geometrician. He would be drawn inexorably to the precisely circular slice of uniform pink meat. Add to this one compellingly orthogonal slice of yellow American, its corners only just touching the bologna’s circumference (like the naked man in that famous sketch) Then punctuate this blessed symmetry with a delicate abstract swirl of bright yellow mustard- perhaps the inspiration for the Mona Lisa’s gracefully curved finger. To then hide such perfection between slices of Wonder Bread would doubtless have disturbed the ...