Tag: Sharon Corcoran

ONE NIGHT ON THE LEVEE by Sharon Corcoran

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ONE NIGHT ON THE LEVEE

For Betsy, Barbara, and Celia

We were three small girls
left in Dad’s care. After dark the phone rang,
and hanging up, he said,
girls, we have to go out.
We put on coats over Winnie the Pooh
pajamas. We gathered up
Chatty Cathy, Raggedy Ann, and a teddy bear.

He drove us down to the flood plain
where a small airplane had crashed.
It smoked, but didn’t burn. Car lights churned the dark.
A farmer had made the call to Dad, mayor
of that almost uninhabited place.
Police were there, and an ambulance.
Dad drove onto the levee where,
in the light of several cars, I saw
two men, one dead, one bloodied
but alive, pulled from the crushed
and splintered plane. I held
a doll’s unblinking gaze in front of my eyes,
too late.

*

Sharon Corcoran lives in southern Colorado. She translated (from French) the writings of North African explorer Isabelle Eberhardt in the works In the Shadow of Islam and Prisoner of Dunes published by Peter Owen Ltd., London. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in Kansas Quarterly, River Styx, Canary, The Buddhist Poetry Review, One Art, Sisyphus, Literary North, and Bearings Online among other journals. Her collection of poems, Inventory, was published in 2018. A second book, The Two Worlds, is forthcoming from Middle Creek Publishing in 2022.

THINGS TO DO AS THE PLANE GOES DOWN by Sharon Corcoran

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THINGS TO DO AS THE PLANE GOES DOWN

Try not to add to the screams.
There will be enough, and more.
Your phone will fail you.
Whisper goodbyes to your heart
and all who dwell there.
Think of the past times you promised
yourself: today it is okay to die—
and tried to mean it.
Return to your breath
as you have been trained.
Even facing the imminent darkness,
you still can’t be sure how many
are left to count. Don’t count.
Only breathe in with gratitude.
And surrender.

*

Sharon Corcoran is a native of St. Louis now living in southern Colorado. At Washington University in St. Louis she studied psychology and linguistics as an undergraduate, and completed an MFA degree in writing there. She has worked in the arts and in a university setting, and as an editor and book indexer. She also translated (from French) the writings of North African explorer Isabelle Eberhardt in the works In the Shadow of Islam and Prisoner of Dunes published by Peter Owen Ltd., London. Her poems have appeared in Kansas Quarterly, River Styx, Canary, and The Buddhist Poetry Review, among other journals.