O:JA&L Poetry: All forms & styles
Richard Widerkehr
Two Solitudes
Click HERE to explore or download Richard Widerkehr’s free PDF chapbook WHAT ON EARTH?
Click HERE to explore or download THE BURDENS OF INTIMACY, a close reading of “Two Solitudes.”
You saw her shame, wanting to give herself,
she said, to the first man on Division Street
she met. There was a black trestle, that tributary
of the Huron River. No locomotive’s shackled wheels.
Fifty years later, she writes and asks if you ever
laughed about what happened. No, never.
She feels, she says, a slight melancholy.
You recall how she unfastened her jade heart
necklace, closed it in your hands. “This won’t work,”
she said. Were there four, five other mornings?
Sometimes, you have this dream. Headstones,
that river. As you walk away, you both lug
on your backs this stone image of the other
one, still young, fingers almost touching.
But you are old, heads bowed, maybe glad
a little at not having given any winter stars
the small, mute satisfaction of seeing what burns
away in clear, bright air. Do not ask if you two
might come to see this world more filled
with mystery than you can understand. No,
do not start a poem that ends, There used
to be more streetlights in the square.
About the writer:
Richard Widerkehr’s fifth book of poems, Missing The Owl, is available from Shanti Arts Publications, as is his previous book, Night Journey. He has also published three chapbooks and one novel, Sedimental Journey (Tarragon Books). He received his M.A. from Columbia’s University, which he attended on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. His work has appeared in O:JA&L, Writer’s Almanac, Verse Daily, Atlanta Review, and many others. He won two Hopwood first prizes for poetry at the University of Michigan, three Sue C. Boynton awards, three prizes at The Bridge, and first prize for a short story at the Pacific Northwest Writers Conference. He has worked as a teacher in the Upward Bound Program at Western Washington University and, later, as a case manager with the mentally ill.
Image: Vis-a-Vis: Memory as a Burden of Regret (AI-assisted digital image) by O:JA&L staff creative. 2026. Public domain via Midjourney AI.
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O:JA&L’S BUTTONHOOK PRESS MASTERS SERIES
Click on the titles below to explore or download the free PDF chapbooks in the O:JA&L Masters Series.
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Brian Clements on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Maxine Chernoff on Prose Poetry
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Pedro Ponce on Flash Fiction
With an Interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
The Buttonhook Press Masters Series: Tom Hazuka on Flash Fiction
With an interview by Associate Editor Pamelyn Casto
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