This selection, chosen by guest editor Shira Haus, is from That Infinite Roar by Laurie Kuntz (Gyroscope Press, 2023).
Steven, Steven
To each other we’d taunt:
What are you gonna do when I’m gone,
think of distant lands, forbidden romance,
and none of the tedium of who left the kitchen light on.
Then, there came the night you were dying—
splayed across black and white
checkered tiles on the bathroom floor.
I can not fathom what I felt then,
only the image of your fading eyes
rolled back in your head,
far away from me.
But you came back, asked:
did I worry not knowing the password
to the latest bank account,
or the location of the key
to the safety deposit box.
I did not think about that, not at all.
I do not know what I thought then,
I only remember screaming your name,
I can only remember screaming your name.
Laurie Kuntz is an award-winning poet and film producer. She taught creative writing and poetry in Japan, Thailand and the Philippines. Many of her poetic themes are a result of her working with Southeast Asian refugees in refugee camps in Thailand and the Philippines for over a decade after the Vietnam War years. She holds an MFA in Writing from Vermont College.
She has published six poetry collections: That Infinite Roar, Talking Me Off The Roof, The Moon Over My Mother’s House, Simple Gestures, Women at the Onsen, and Somewhere in the Telling. Her book, Simple Gestures, won the Texas Review Poetry Chapbook Contest, and Women at the Onsen won the Blue Light Press Chapbook Contest.
She has been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes and two Best of the Net Prizes. Her work has been published in Gyroscope Review, Roanoke Review, Third Wednesday, OneArt, Sheila Na Gig, The Bloomsbury Review, The MacGuffin, The Louisville Review, The Charlotte Poetry Review, The Roanoke Review, The Southern Review, The New Virginia Review, The South Florida Review, and many other literary journals and anthologies.
She produced the documentaries, Do Tell, on the repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Law, and Strangers to Peace, a documentary on the Colombian peace process and reintegration of guerrilla soldiers in Colombia.
She has been writing poetry since she could hold a pen. She currently resides in Florida, where every day is a political poem waiting to be written. Retired, she lives in an endless summer state of mind.
Shira Leah Haus (she/her) is a queer, antizionist Jewish writer from Michigan. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Poetry Magazine, Passages North, Poetry Northwest, and wildness, among others. She has received support from the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference and placed third in the 2024 Pinch Literary Awards for poetry.
