Cliff Saunders has an MFA in Creative Writing from The University of Arizona. His poems have appeared recently in The Wayne Literary Review, Pedestal Magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Pinyon, San Pedro River Review, North of Oxford, and RipRap Literary Journal. He lives in Myrtle Beach, where he serves as co-coordinator of The Litchfield Tea & Poetry Series.

Welcome News

Welcome back spring
with its blood of light
into your heart.

Welcome back the symbolism
of fall into your head and learn
a new word for black.

Welcome to the landscape
of memory and the end of time.
This is your side of the moon,

part of your faith journey,
the song you thought you knew.
Welcome home, highway angel

wearing your faith
on your sleeve.
On the upper mezzanine,

you dangle at your fingertips
a tangled mess of monkeys.
You write the song of pain

we need right now.
Welcome to guilt
and tomorrow’s blue cone

of shame. You are what
suddenly goes away
when it falls apart.

The fountain of you springs
from a hole in the ground
and thirsts for another.