“Not even the tiniest incident of beauty slips past Laura Rodley’s watchful eye. . . . ” This is a quote from Boston Literary Magazine Chapbook Review about Laura’s collection of poetry, Your Left Wheel is Coming Loose. I heartily concur. I first became familiar with Laura’s work when we both had work in Kiss Me Goodnight. Her poem “Addicted” is in Solace in So Many Words and she has let me publish “If I Had a Horse”on this website. Last week I put out a call for submissions and Laura sent me three. I am publishing this one today as it seems apt, weatherwise.
Montague City Road
Tonight black river water shook hands
with warm January clouds
sending mists across roads
blinding as snow blizzard
visibility less than zero
light bouncing off light.
I passed by number 300,
went eight houses beyond
to the end of the road, unable
to see any mailboxes,
and then the angel
on the seventh step
cleared the path, come home now, at once
so I drove behind cars
blinking red lights
at twenty miles an hour
in a fifty-five miles per hour zone
on Route 2, but I made
it home and the angel
reached out her wings for me
unable to leave the seventh step
her wing tips soothing my eyes,
the frost on my hair.
© Laura Rodley 2013
Author’s note: The Angel on the Seventh Step is taken from Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt.
In addition to Your Front Wheel is Coming Loose, another chapbook Rappelling Blue Light has been published too. Both are from Finishing Line Press.
Laura is also the recipient of a Pushcart Prize for her poem “Resurrection” which appeared on The New Verse News and the poem is published in The Pushcart Prlze XXXVII: Best of the Small Presses. Her poetry has appeared in the anthologies Crossing Paths, 911 Peace Project, Anthology of New England Writers, and The Blueline Anthology and in the journals such as Connecticut River Review, Earth’s Daughters, Massachusetts Review, Sanctuary, The National Audubon Magazine, Boston Literary Magazine, Quick Fiction, Sahara, Sanctuary, The Raintown Review, Tiger’s Eye and Way Station Magazine. Her work has been read on WHMP, KVMR, 89.5 FM radio in Nevada City, California, and NPR-affiliated station WAMC in Albany. She is a freelance writer and photographer from Shelburne Falls, MA .
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