New Poetry by E.F. Schraeder

Ramona from Assisted Living Tells us, the visitors, about yesterday’s emergency outside work, where the ringing bells remind us of death with every tone; how a small girl wandered, an archetype through a corn field. Text messages alert hundreds who gather, hand in hand for three hours walking the cold rows long past sunset to find her. Lost, like these ones we look over to talk, while they slumber in wheelchairs, tilt toward perpetual dusk until a waiting hand finds them. - E. F. Schraeder 2012 For the Birds Every visit past the glass cage where bright canaries and gray lovebirds nest, their orange beaks pecking at straw and string, I worry for them, watch the mindful cat on the cushion. My concerns fall from the glass, collapse to the floor like heaps of empty husks and seed shells. They wait out their lives, pecking and sleeping, chirping their stories to residents, visitors, nurses, anyone who pauses long enough for hello. Most pass them on the way to mothers and fathers, grandmas and grandpas. They behave like the framed prints on the wall, unassuming and decorative, overcrowded and sad, small eyes looking for something not found. - E. F. Schraeder E. F. Schraeder's creative work has appeared in Haz Mat Review, Corvus Magazine, Bluepepper, Kicked Out, Whitechapel 13, and elsewhere.