Michael Catherwood
has an MFA from the University of Arkansas and a BFA from the University of Nebraska at Omaha. Writes essays for Plainsongs and have work forthcoming in Briar Cliff Review, Borderlands, and Westview. Has worked as a truck driver, weed whacker, garbage man, teacher, tutor, substitute teacher, and administrator. Currently teaches at Creighton University.

The Last Poem

Piles of photographs run across
my mother's basement. Each pile for one

of her children. I stare at the strangers
and read the names scratched on the back:

"unknown-from Hungary." I think when
Mom finishes this project, the organization

of photographs she started after Dad died,
she will die. My past curls up into soot.

The last smoke rises and floats and dies.

I've seen enough of the past…
a kid loose in the evening streets

always grabbing at light, standing
beneath the dim yellow past.

Hollow moths skid across the sky
large as cowboy boots.

Not mine, that past. I'm the kid
who leans against a mailbox, the last poem.

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