New to Strong Verse? Click Here New Poems • Barbara Archer • After the Fall • Daniel Arenson • Youth • Elizabeth Barrette • Countrycide • Helena Bell • I Asked What it Looked Like • Catherine E. Bollinger • Blood Sucker • Alric Bolt • Dangle • Orson Scott Card • Fires • Belly • Don't You Remember the End of the World? • Carol M. Carpenter • Reunion Sunday • Penny Denice Cobb • Caterpillar, Flying • Michael Collings • For Grace Isabella • Pomegranates • 'Possum • The House We Owned • Julia DeLong • Behold the handmaiden • The Orphic Guide • Shards • Rose Drew • For Rose • Lee Evans • Vitreous Floaters • Jimmy nil Fishhawk • Night Blessing • Sonnet for Leaves Shaking Light • David Flynn • Summers Were Warm Back Then • Lara Gose • Visiting Grandma • Laura Lawlor Hewitt • Matter of Madness • Juleigh Howard-Hobson • Coming Upon A Stone Circle at Sunset • Joseph Josephides • The Window • Abel Keogh • The End of the World • Catherine Knutsson • The Soft Fall of Snow • Eric Lehman • The Hall of Cats • Fred Longworth • Downtown San Diego, 1953 • Jennifer McCauley • Ragged • Robin Merrill • Ferris Rhubarb • Jaime Lee Moyer • Minstrel • Lawrence Nielsen • Not Puccini but Dvorak • Adrienne J. Odasso • The Damage Done • One if by Land • Not Eden • G. M. Palmer • The Penguin and the Clam • Elijah and the Antelope • For the Unborn Dead • Palm Sunday • The Rest • Geoff Peterson • The Ballad of Moses • Eva poon • She Doesn't Know • Jason Kelly Richards • Mother Nature's Facilities • Charles Ries • Jack • Scott M. Roberts • Joogled by Broogles • Song of the Rivelaunt • Pie Fight on the Way To Hell • Train Window Prophet • Adam Z. Robinson • Photograph: A family gathering • Bride & Groom • Johnny Rocket • Angels, Gramma, and Questions • Marsheila Marcy Rockwell • Chrissy at the Grave of P.S. 103 • R. Allen Shoaf • The Father Gives His Boy a Knife • The Boy in Chains • My Father's Church • Cate Snyder • More Nonsense • Mary Sutton-Paul • Shoes • Cory Swainston • The Oath of the Horatii • Justin Taylor • Hallandale • If you weren't now with man... • I was lying when I said I didn't love you • Literary Conceit • Madelia Tower • Fall of Light • Ann Walters • He Speaks Stars • Oregon Morning • In Dreams He Purrs • A Night in Zion • Christopher Way • Fort Myers, Florida • Spring Nerve Sheath • Zach West • Witching Hour • Emily Whitby • Untitled, For Now • Unsent Letter 7 • James R. Whitley • The Goddess of the Hustle

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Shoes "Who wants to take his shoes?" the nurse asks. Then hands them to my brother who cradles them in his arms close to his chest the way I saw him hold his son for the first time. When we wake in the morning, the heaviness in our bones will tell us this wasn't a dream. We'll be unable to wake ourselves from the sadness. But tonight we are here with him to kiss our fingertips and press them against his forehead, to close his eyes, to pull the crisp, white sheet up over his face, to take home his shoes.

Mary Sutton-Paul