Julie Hill Alger Poems

I walk home at August moonrise
past a bright window.
Inside the room
an old woman sees the full moon
...

They call it stroke.
Two we loved were stunned
by that same blow of cudgel
or axe to the brow.
...

In the red-roofed stucco house
of my childhood, the dining room
was screened off by folding doors
with small glass panes. Our neighbors
...

When the molten earth seethed
in its whirling cauldron
nobody watched the pot
from a tall wooden stool
...

All the babies born that Tuesday,
full of grace, went home by Thursday
except for one, my tiny girl
who rushed toward light too soon.
...

At least I've learned this much:
Life doesn't have to be
all poetry and roses. Life
can be bus rides, gritty sidewalks,
...

The new war is a week old.
Bombs fall on Baghdad,
missiles on Tel Aviv.
...