Umbrella
A Journal of Poetry and Kindred Prose


Claire Keyes

has published reviews and poems in The Women’s Review of Books, The Georgia Review, Calyx, The Valparaiso Review, and Rattle, among others.

She has won the Robert Penn Warren Award from New England Writers as well as a First Prize in poetry from Smartish Pace.

The Question of Rapture, a book of poems, was published by Mayapple Press in 2008.

She lives in Marblehead, Massachusetts with her husband, Jay Moore, and teaches in the Lifelong Learning Program at Salem State University.


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The Midas Touch

In that brief moment after her father’s kiss,
she must have felt cold all over, yet brilliant
and hardened to the tears

of the man who wept at her feet.
In the muffler shop, I fan myself with last month’s Time
waiting to be called by the receptionist,

her fingertips flashing crimson, this job of hers
no match for the proud arch of her eyebrows.
I don't know who she thinks she is or why

Midas thought he was such hot stuff
the gods would not deal him dirt.
And what do we remember? Not a fool
brought low, but the magic of his touch.