Howie Good
lifeboat
We were rowing for the shelter of the island.
"Paper or plastic?" passing birds taunted.
I stood up to look around - nothing in sight,
not even a heart at least a little ashamed of mankind.
My bones cracked when I sat back down.
So this is how a hero dies, I thought.
You had an unsaid apology on your lips
and one leg already over the side.
Bio
Howie Good, a journalism professor at SUNY New Paltz, is the author of the forthcoming poetry collection The Middle of Nowhere (Olivia Eden Publishing) and the forthcoming poetry chapbooks The Complete Absence of Twilight (Mad Hat Press), Echo's Bones and Danger Falling Debris (Red Bird Chapbooks), and An Armed Man Lurks in Ambush (unbound CONTENT). He co-edits White Knuckle Press with Dale Wisely.