Good morning, readers! This is Guest Editor Rich Boucher here, proud to fill in for Jon the month of June - I promise I won't break too many things, and I will clean up after myself! Promise!

Now, then....onward to the poetry.....

...we are gifted this morning with two poems by Susan Sherman, who will be giving a reading to celebrate the release of her book, "The Light that Puts an End to Dreams (Selected & New poems)" on Saturday, June 9, from 7pm to 8pm at Alamosa Books, 8810 Holly Ave NE, Albuquerque.

Let the messages in her works this morning savor on our tongues like a rare wine, at once intense and serene....

CASUALTIES OF WAR

There are some pictures in the mind

impossible to forget   Over the phone 

her words barely perceptible   her voice thin 

Susan, I love you   Both knowing

these are the last words that will pass between us   ever 

as she slips back into a coma   to die at thirty-five

a breast tumor   undetected   until too late 

There are secrets we shared   connected in friendship

struggle   that will never be revealed   and others 

The night she appeared at my door   suitcase in hand 

crying   stunned   arriving home unexpectedly

to find her boyfriend activist hero 

with a needle in his arm   a packet of white powder

balanced on the bathroom shelf 

Susan, I love you   I put down the phone

never pick it up again to say her name

With all we went through together   that night

for the first time   I call myself coward 

Sonia   we both knew   it was just too much to bear

And now   years later   I sit and watch the death

of another friend   We don't share the same events

have lived different lives   Only one secret 

passed between us   AIDS

There is no way to hide that name

This time I sit day by day   watching him slowly

die   Watching the words drift away from his lips

and then his mind   as less and less enters

through closed and hooded lids   This time

it is already too late to turn away

I see now how struggle can drain you   wear you out

in unexpected ways   A war is hardest

when the enemy is undefined   When so few recognize

there is an enemy   a human face   beneath inhuman acts

Make no mistake   this is no elegy   no lament 

These people are not victims   martyrs  

They are casualties of a war    they struggled

all their life to win 

--Susan Sherman

MIGRATION

Birds fly south   chained to the wind   They are wild

not free   There is a difference   They move

without reflection    choice   driven by instincts 

they cannot begin to understand  

What use are words against such need  

I thought I could lose my self in wings 

but I am held by memory  desire

imagined futures   Citizens of air  of water

earth and sea   we are sisters and brothers

bound together by a destination that calls us

in our blood  But only I can turn around

fly north   change direction   return again

fly south into the wind

--Susan Sherman

Poetry submissions are welcome.  Email theditchrider@gmail.com.