Tracing a Love Song

Photo: "On A Back Road" by Lynne Schmidt

Tracing a Love Song

(Golden Shovel based on a line from "Empty Highway Home" James Fountain)

Charcoal clouds swell in an orange dawn sky. I

drive this regular, everyday route where I am

conscious of each pothole, each bump, each afraid

rabbit; the magpies that move aside, wary of

cars; the pigeons and muntjacs who aren't. The

sun doesn't diminish the fog. The day remains dark.

The radio plays a love song that renders me blank.

Love fades as leaves fall. A familiar road.

~ Emma Lee

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Emma Lee’s publications include “Ghosts in the Desert” (IDP, UK, 2015). “The Significance of a Dress” is forthcoming from Arachne. She co-edited “Over Land, Over Sea,” (Five Leaves, UK, 2015), is Poetry Reviews Editor for The Blue Nib, reviews for magazines and blogs at http://emmalee1.wordpress.com.

Lynne Schmidt is the author of the poetry chapbooks, Gravity (Nightingale and Sparrow Press), On Becoming a Role Model (Thirty West Publishing, Spring 2020), and Dead Dog Poems (Bottlecap Press, Summer 2020). She is a mental health professional in Maine and the founder of AbortionChat. Her work has received the Maine Nonfiction Award, Editor's Choice Award, Honorable Mention for the Charles Bukowski Poetry Award, and was a 2018 and 2019 PNWA finalist for memoir and poetry respectively.

Lynne is a five time 2019 Best of the Net Nominee, and when given the choice, Lynne prefers the company of her three dogs and one cat to humans.