"Imprinted" & "Heartache" by Edward Anki

Imprinted

It’s something about time the torturous

divine this image of tiny lizards

scurrying ancient stone walls with

which I remained this morning upon

waking something about time and the forgotten

dead and cemeteries in Italy and Portugal and Spain

it’s something about toppled sandcastles

children at play

ghostly schoolyards

it’s something about wearied fishermen

docking battered boats it’s about the ebb

and the flow and thin crust pizza dough

it’s about so much and so little and the haunted

house down by the pier it’s about

sad grandma underwear and

sickened beige curtains and

slivers of late afternoon light.

Heartache

Hearing the flub

flub of my heart

during an echocardiogram

I’m reminded of Albert

a boy in my 2nd grade class

Japanese I believe who was teased

by yours truly for picking up a penny

in the schoolyard one day well let

me tell you Albert gave it to me good

that day he began screaming and crying

and telling me about how each penny

went toward making a dollar and about

how each dollar meant food and shelter

he really told me off good and proper

that sunny day in the 2nd grade I think

I even apologized I felt so bad.

Edward Anki's poetry has appeared in Rejection Letters, Cacti Fur, The Feathertale Review, (parenthetical), Qwerty, The Chaffin Journal, and others. A chapbook of his poetry, Remote Life, was published by BareBackPress (2014). His first full-length poetry collection, Screw Factory, was released in 2022 by Anxiety Press. A former stand-up comic, bartender, and agonized telemarketer, Edward is currently engaged in part-time studies to become a psychotherapist.