by Mike Bove
Poetry
Anger evaporates on the open table
beside an empty glass. My mother
is dead. At the end of August, heat
recedes at last. We push windows open
to let cool air pour in at night.
The part of the coyote we can’t see
arrives in darkness as we move
between rooms to turn off lights.
I had to give it up, the familiarity
of rage. There was no object left.
You tell me to be careful with love
in my poems, especially
near the end. I try, but listen:
here it is again, howling.
Mike Bove is the author of four books of poetry, most recently EYE. His poems have appeared in Rattle, Southern Humanities Review, Tar River Poetry, and others. He was a two-time finalist for a Maine Literary Award and won the Maine Postmark Poetry Contest in 2021. In 2024 he served as writer-in-residence at Acadia National Park. Currently, he is editor of Hole in the Head Review, a biannual journal of poetry. Mike lives with his family in Portland, Maine, where he was born and raised, and he is professor of English at Southern Maine Community College. www.mikebove.com