James B. Nicola
April 25, 2015
And now she's safely underground
In the peaceful place that George has found.
The wicked winter made her wait
But worlds have softened up of late.
Soon she'll have a marble stone
Tall enough, I'm told, for three.
For a while she'll lie alone,
With strange new neighbors' company.
Then one day-when, you cannot tell,
Though she'll know, inexplicably—
After tear-tinged celebrating,
After she is done with waiting,
She'll have George as well
And me.
Bio
James B. Nicola's poems and nonfiction have appeared in the Antioch, Southwest, Green Mountains, and Atlanta Reviews; Rattle; Tar River; and Poetry East. He has been the featured poet in Westward Quarterly and New Formalist. A Yale graduate, he has earned a Dana Literary Award, two Willow Review awards, a People's Choice award (from Storyteller), and six Pushcart nominations–from Shot Glass Journal, Parody, Ovunque Siamo, Lowestoft Chronicle, and twice from Trinacria–for which he feels both stunned and grateful. His nonfiction book Playing the Audience won a Choice award. His poetry collections are Manhattan Plaza (2014), Stage to Page: Poems from the Theater (2016), Wind in the Cave (2017), Out of Nothing: Poems of Art and Artists (2018), and Quickening: Poems from Before and Beyond (2019).