By Frank Rosen
All in the Water
My friend had an aggressive imaginary cancer
The one that kills you fast with a distant
Shake of the head
She lived in an Erie lakefront house
With bottled water and orange clouds
Cast on the beach
She ran the new park trails
Her nostrils flaring
With doubt
She saw the city come back from
A long way back still pouring
Waste in the lake
She was caught up on her health screens
Covered with blood tests all
Normal
She had some depression with
Close family ties and would die
For a good sunset
She tormented her doctors
That it’s all in the water
And jumped off the Innerbelt Bridge
Cuyahoga Thanatos
Crowding reeds
Steady
Weekend waders
The signal
Silver bait
The river soon
Silent
Absorbed
Frank Thomas Rosen is a writer and nurse practitioner based in Lakewood, Ohio. His latest collection of poetry – auschwitz of the digital age and other poems (new cognitive poetry) – was published by Cherry Castle Publishing in 2019. Rosen’s poems have appeared in Ambit, Dongola Books, The American Journal of Poetry, The Skinny Poetry Journal, and various anthologies. Rosen is a member of the Last Exit Poetry Group in Kent, Ohio.
