Contributor: James Rudolph

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This slope, a mild grade,
I descend as a stroller
rounding, edging hillocks
Lincoln green with short grass and
tufting Sweet William and then
a glade of bones.

The dead’s dry cove
in repose, gathered casually
as if passing mid tattle,
gentle ossuary of the spent I
lean in to catch a confidence.


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James Robert Rudolph is a retired healthcare worker and teacher having returned to old haunts in northern New Mexico after a busy career in Minneapolis. He believes in old-style magical realism, that inspired by the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, the high desert, and the deep, broad sky of the American mountain west. His poems have appeared in The Artistic Muse, Mad Swirl, and Poetry Super Highway, among others.